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CRB Refuses to Raise Royalty Rate For Online Retail
October 2, 2008 at 2:23 PM (PT)
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Soon after APPLE publicly threatened to shutter its iTUNES music store should it have to pay more in royalties, the COPYRIGHT ROYALTY BOARD (CRB) rejected the publishers' petition for a 66% royalty rate hike. Instead the CRB froze royalty rates at 9 cents per song for songwriters and music publishers.
To throw a bone of publisher's interests, the CRB for the first time instituted a rate of 24 cents for each ringtone subject to the mechanical license, and gave publishers the right to seek a 1.5% late fee, calculated monthly. That was enough to prompt NATIONAL MUSIC PUBLISHERS' ASSOCIATION (NMPA) Pres./CEO DAVID ISRAELITE to claim, "These events will bring clarity and order to an environment that for the past decade has been hampered by litigation and uncertainty on all sides."