“In news which could well be good for Apple Music, but bad for rival free streaming music services, the federal Copyright Royalty Board has ruled that ad-supported internet radio companies such as Pandora must pay higher royalty rates to artists and record labels,” Luke Dormehl reports for Cult of Mac.
“From next year, Pandora, iHeartMedia and others will pay 17 cents for every 100 plays of a song on their free tier. This fee will increase over the following four years in line with inflation,” Dormehl reports. “The net result is that things are being made tougher for steaming music services operating on free tiers, which Apple Music notably does not do.”
Dormehl writes, “While I can’t imagine that Apple wants to pay more royalties than it has to, it’s also in the great position of not having to rely on its music service to make the majority of its revenue, as is the case for rival music and Internet radio services.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Musicians and the music industry undermines themselves by allowing their music to be streamed by “free,” ad-supported outfits.
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Analyst: Apple Music already has 8 million subscribers, will hit 20 million in 2016 – December 17, 2015