[IP] "medium"-sized webcasters...

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall
Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 11:30:48 -0700 (PDT)
To: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: "medium"-sized webcasters...


Hello Declan and Dave... thought this might be interesting to one or
both of you... (it would be great if you could remove my email address
if forwarded).

In the negotiations between content holders and the various types of
webcasters, there have been successful compromises that cover small
and large webcasters but not "medium"-sized webcasters.  This has lead
to a stark regulatory discontinuity that can be illustrated with a
simple example:

>From a Radio And Internet Newsletter editorial (
http://www.kurthanson.com/archive/news/060603/index.asp ):

"A typical webcaster with revenues of $499,999.50 2003 has an annual
royalty obligation to SoundExchange of $54,962 (under the "small
webcaster" rate). Should they earn just $1 more in revenues, their fee
jumps to $562,162 (under the large webcaster rate) -- more than 100% of
their revenues!"

Unless this situation is changed, it would seem impossible to go from
being a small webcaster to a large webcaster without significant
investment totaling at least a couple times the revenue of the
webcaster. Yikes!

Joe

------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph Lorenzo Hall
Graduate Student                 http://astron.berkeley.edu/~jhall



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