U.S. Patent Office invalidates key claims of Personal Audio podcast patent

Following a charge by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has invalidated the key elements of the patent that Personal Audio was using to demand license fees from podcasters. The EFF’s argument was that Personal Audio had not invented anything new, and that the technique should not have been patented because it would have been obvious to other developers. Continue Reading

German collection society posts increased streaming revenue, but critiques royalty rates

GEMA, a German collection society, announced that its 2014 global revenue was €893.6 million euros (about $950 million). Streaming revenue accounted for €44.8 million, up from €26.4 million in 2013, but GEMA came out with a strong statement against the current royalty split between rights holders, songwriters, and publishers. Continue Reading

Internet Radio Rewind #038: When exclusives aren’t exclusive; banking on a music label

A weekly podcast from RAIN News

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An eight-minute blast of news you need to know in streaming audio.

THIS WEEK: Streaming exclusives don’t stay exclusive; Webcast listening reaches new record; when a music label and a bank hook up; milestone moment for 8tracks; Pandora pays more than half of all webcast royalties Continue Reading

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How Misunderstandings about Big Numbers Distort the Debate over Songwriter Digital Music Royalties

by David Oxenford

Barely a day goes by without seeing some article about a songwriter whose song was played a million times on a digital music service like Pandora or Spotify, with the artist only receiving a relatively small amount of royalty revenue from that seemingly large number of plays. A number of issues are misunderstood — especially about big numbers. Continue Reading