WASHINGTON, DC – (CelebrityAccess) – The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) finally came to a decision Friday (July 1) in the Phonorecords III or CRB III proceedings, favoring songwriters by sticking to its decision to increase the headline rate paid in the US from on-demand streaming services between 2018 – 2022. The CRB decided to move that figure up from 10.5% to 15.1% across those five years.
It is the largest rate increase in the history of the CRB.
It wasn’t without its detractors, however. Spotify, Amazon, and Google launched a legal appeal against the new rates, arguing that they were unjustified.
The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) was a proponent of the increase and has fought against the appeal from the streaming giants.
David Israelite, the CEO and President of the NMPA released a statement after the ruling. “Today the CRB reaffirmed the 15.1% headline rate increase we earned four long years [ago], confirming that songwriters need and deserve a significant raise from the digital streaming services who profit from their work.”
When the CRB initially decided to increase the rate, it also decided at that time that streaming services would either have to pay songwriters the headline rate, or – if it resulted in a higher figure – the platforms would pay up to 26.2% of their Total Content Costs (TCC) across records and publishing without a cap on the amount.
The CRB did decide to ultimately cap that amount, limiting the payout songwriters can get from each streaming service.
With the headline rate hike, the streaming services are about to pay out a whole bunch of cash to publishers and songwriters to cover the now official 15.1% CRB rate for those five years.
With CRB III in the books, the focus turns to CRB IV. Which, according to Musicweek are the proceedings that will determine what songwriters in the US get paid from streaming services in the years between 2023 and 2027.
Israelite: “We will fight to increase the TCC, or percentage of label revenue, which amounts to an insurance policy for songwriters, in the next CRB and will also fight for stronger terms regarding bundles.”
Israelite added: “This process was protracted and expensive and though we are relieved with the outcome, years of litigation to uphold a rate increase we spent years fighting for is a broken system. Now, songwriters and music publishers finally can be made whole and receive the rightful royalty rates from streaming services that they should’ve been paid years ago. We will work to ensure that the services quickly backpay copyright owners as they are required by law.”
