CHICAGO, July 23,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to yesterday's
press release from music royalties collective SoundExchange (SX)
regarding its recent court filing against online music pioneer
AccuRadio, the webcaster issued the following
statement:
"SoundExchange's (SX) lawsuit against AccuRadio comes as a
complete surprise to us, as we have been working with SX
negotiating a fair and reasonable payment plan for several months
now, working in what we believed was good faith from both parties,"
notes AccuRadio Founder/CEO Kurt
Hanson. "In fact, we thought our latest proposal was being
vetted by SX and would be adopted by the parties with few
modifications."
Hanson continued, "Rather than 'refusing to pay
royalties,' as SX's press release states, in fact AccuRadio
has been a consistently reliable SX licensee for the vast majority
of the past 20+ years, having paid SX over $12,500,000 in royalties to date. SX's
implication that AccuRadio hasn't paid royalties since 2018 is
erroneous and fails to note that AccuRadio resumed full payments
in early 2021 and continued until very
recently."
The core problem for AccuRadio and for many other music
services, Hanson notes, "is that royalty rates for music played on
online radio are wildly higher than they are for other forms
of radio.
"AM/FM stations pay no sound recording royalties for
terrestrial broadcasts, and satellite radio is rumored to pay a
royalty of about 15% of revenue," Hanson continues, "yet
AccuRadio's SX royalty obligation in some months has worked out to
be as high as 45% to 78% of its revenues."
Hanson observes, "The high music streaming royalty rates
are particularly challenging for smaller and independent webcasters
like AccuRadio that don't have deep pockets or multinational
corporate parents."
Hanson concludes by saying that "At AccuRadio, we
love the medium of online radio – with its ease-of-use, incredible
variety, personalization features, and reasonable spot load – and
we intend to continue to work with SX, either directly or via a
judge, to enter into a fair and reasonable payment plan for past
obligations and to resume current-period payments ASAP."
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SOURCE AccuRadio