CRB Refuses to Raise Royalty Rate For Online Retail

You'll Soon Need More Of This To Pay For Ringtones

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."

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