Hey, we're spoiling you this morning - more copyright news now.
A spokesman for PPL yesterday confirmed that the recording rights royalty body is "about two weeks off" being able to offer a licence for more interactive radio services. Speaking at the Copyright Forum held by the Association Of Streaming Media Companies in London yesterday, PPL's Matt McLeer said: "We know online webcasters want to offer more customization, more archive and interactive facilities. These services involve different rights than those that have traditionally be assigned to PPL, but we have been working with our members to put together a new licence for these kind of services, and we are very close to being able to confirm what that licence will be".
The new licence will be limited to UK based services, though McLeer added that he hoped that as collecting societies in other territories introduced similar licences, then a cross-territory licence like that which exists for linear web radio services would be possible. He also confirmed that major labels were involved in the new licence, though he couldn't confirm if all four were on board.
All of which is good news for the more innovative online radio services who have so far been unable to operate with a recorded music licence, because the nature of their services contravenes key components of the licences currently on offer. Well I say good news - most of the key players in the webcasting sector suspect they won't be able to sign up to the new licence either because, even if the new system accommodates the functionality of the services they offer, it is unlikely they will be willing to accept the price PPL is expected to ask for.
Price is a big issue for the webcasters in their ongoing negotiations with the recording rights collection society. While they agree that, as copyright law dictates, they should pay a "fair and reasonable" price for the music they play on their services, they dispute that the price currently being proposed by PPL is either of those things. The main bone of contention (other than the fact PPL is offering per-track-per-stream deals, rather than revenue share) is that the price webcasters will have to pay to licence the recordings they play is, they claim, ten to twenty times higher than that paid by the traditional broadcasters (ie AM and FM radio services) - despite the fact the traditional broadcasters are operating in a much more mature and lucrative market. As Martin Stiksel from Last FM, one of the other speakers at the ASMeC event, joked, "OK, so our services are 30% better than traditional radio, so you want us to pay 30% more - but 15 times more?"
Of course, as PPL are keen to point out (and some webcasters willing to admit), the online domain is a whole new world for the recorded rights sector, and a lot has been achieved given challenges new online services pose the rights owners. But with the webcasters unwilling, and to be fair, unable to pay the price being asked by PPL, if the rights owners they represent won't negotiate further, perhaps I will get to wear my copyright tribunal hat after all.
PS: As I said, PPL's announcement came at the Copyright Forum event staged yesterday by ASMeC, essentially the inaugural event of the streaming media industry's new trade association. Both rights owners and media companies were in attendance (they even let some lawyers in), and the association now hopes to use the discussions to help identify and then lobby on common issues faced by the streaming media sector. If you're interested in what exactly those discussions were - look out for CMU's full report of the event on the website next week.
PPS: Don't forget you can read our interview with lawyer Gregor Pryor on many of these issues right now at http://www.cmumusicnetworj.co.uk/interviews