Copyright Tribunal hands down decision for online radio simulcasting case

The dispute between thePhonographic Performance Company of Australia(PPCA) and Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) over music streaming payments is coming to an end.

CRA has long claimed that paying the record industry for a simulcast licence would be ‘double dipping’, as it would be paying the fee on top of existing broadcast fees. In a judgementhanded down last Tuesday (April 26) this claim has been rejected by Justice Jagot, deputy president of the Copyright Tribunal of Australia.

Justice Jagot ruled commercial stations will have a choice in how they pay the record ­industry for streaming music. They can either do as the PPCA had requested and pay per stream (at 0.059c per stream), putting them in line with digital services like Spotify and Pandora, or as a percen­tage of gross revenue.

The aforementioned 0.059c per stream rate is about 43% below PPCA’s latest proposal but double CRA’s proposal of $0.00029c.

The Tribunal said in its judgement statement: “The fact that the per stream rate of $0.00059 is materially below the rate from the PPCA webcasting agreements, having regard to our findings about the difference between the webcasting and commercial radio industries and the bargaining power of individual webcasters and the collective of radio stations, indicates to us that the percentage of revenue rates and the per stream rate we have selected are within the (wide) bounds of reasonableness.”

Additionally, PPCA’s request for the model to convert to a per stream rate after five years was dismissed by Justice Jagot.

Both parties are reviewing the decision and will return in 28 days for further negotiations surrounding definitions of ‘gross revenue’ and ‘stream’, and just how long a listener has to stream a track for a licence fee to be paid – CRA says 30 seconds, PPCA says one second.

The Tribunal ruled that using the agreement between CRA and composers’ collecting body APRA to define ‘gross revenue’ for the collection of streaming fees was “inappropriate” as the model is out of date.

Late month CRA announced it had begun the triennial review of the Commercial Radio Code of Practice. Every three years CRA reviews the code to ensure contemporary commercial radio broadcasting reflects current community standards. Comments can be submitted tocodes@commercialradio.com.au before May 28.