CPB-SoundExchange Reach Agreement Through 2015
August 10th, 2009 by Phil JohnsonLast week the CPB announced that it has reached an agreement with SoundExchange to cover music streaming by public broadcasters through 2015. Recall that the agreement reached earlier this year covered the period January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2010. The new agreement runs from January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2015.
The new agreement is similar to the existing one, and contains the same basic parameters:
1. The CPB covers all royalty payments for all covered stations for the period of the agreement.
2. Stations must continue to report quarterly (through Public Interactive) on the music they stream and the number of people that heard it. The vast majority of stations will continue to do only sample reporting (i.e. reporting on two weeks out of each quarter). Currently, only the top 20% of streamers have to do full-census reporting; starting in 2010 (under the current agreement and continuing through the next agreement) the top 30% of streaming music stations will need to do full census reporting. Public Interactive will stations know if they fall into the top 30% of music streamers.
3. Stations are still responsible for abiding by the terms of the Performance Complement of the DMCA.
This is good news for everyone. Honest.
Below is an official mailing on the agreement sent out last week.
Feel free to contact me with questions.
To: Public Radio System Leaders
From: Bruce Theriault, Senior Vice President, Radio, CPB; Jeff Luchsinger, Director, Radio System Investment, CPB
Date: August 6, 2009
Subject: New CPB-SoundExchange Agreement 2011 – 2015
Dear Colleagues;
We are pleased to announce that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting(CPB) has reached an agreement with SoundExchange (SX) that defines the terms, conditions, and costs for public broadcasters to provide (music) sound recordings over the Internet for the period Jan. 1, 2011 through December 31, 2015.
As you will remember, CPB and a team including NPR and the Station Resource Group came to an agreement with SX in January of this year for the period 2004 – 2010. The new agreement was reached under the Small Webcasters Settlement Act, which was recently amended by Congress and signed by the President to permit the execution of agreements under the Act until midnight, July 30, 2009. The new agreement continues to recognize public radio’s special public service mission and non-commercial nature. It also maintains public radio’s commitment that artists and labels featured on public radio station websites receive the compensation to which they are entitled.
CPB will make annual payments to SX over the term of the new agreement to cover qualified public radio stations (CPB qualified, NPR member and NFCB member stations) and NPR, PRI, APM, and PRX. The type and format of the reports that public radio stations must provide to take advantage of the new CPB-SX blanket agreement are essentially unchanged from those described in the current agreement. To secure the benefits of these agreements most stations will have an obligation to provide quarterly data on usage of their Internet streams and accurate playlists of sound recordings played on their websites. A sub-set of stations will be required to provide census reporting. These reports supply SX with the information necessary to make payments to artists and labels.
Earlier this year CPB selected NPR/Public Interactive (NPR/PI) as the sole agent to collect and report public radio music streaming activities to SX and to assist stations in complying with the reporting requirements. PI has been moving quickly to get stations up to speed and provided the first quarterly reports to SX last month. The deadline for the next set of quarterly reports is October, 16, 2009.