The CRB have ruled in favour of digital media providers and, as a consequence, the Apple iTunes store will remain open for the forseeable future.
iTunes devotees will today breathe a sign of relief after a ruling that could have forced Apple to close the iTunes store is rejected.
Yesterday we reported that the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), a body responsible for determining the terms and rates for copyright statutory licenses in America, were to review an appeal to raise the online royalty payments made to recording artists for sales of their music online.
The requested increase, put forward by the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA), would have seen digital media providers such as Apple foot the bill for a 66% increase in royalty rates.
Concerns were raised that should the CRB vote in favour of the proposed 6 cent hike in, Apple would be forced to shut the iTunes store; the software giant have previously acknowledged that they would be unwilling to continue with the venture should its profitability lessen.
However, we can today report that the NMPA’s appeal was unsuccessful, bringing to an end speculation that the iTunes store will soon be closed.
The CRB instead decided to maintain the royalty rates for music purchased over the internet at its current rate of 9 cents (5p) per download for the next five years. This represents the first time the body have ruled on the rates applying to digital media. The royalty rate for ringtone purchases was also fixed at 24 cents per download.
While the rate fix falls short of the 4.8 cent Apple proposed to the governing body, a spokes person has today confirmed that they are "happy" with the CRB’s decision.
The NMPA have also acknowledged the decision with David Israelite, Chief of the organisation commenting:
"These events will bring clarity and order to an environment that for the past decade has been hampered by litigation and uncertainty on all sides."
Digital music distributors currently pay 70 cents out of every dollar they receive from music downloads to record labels, only 9c/$ of this is passed on to the artist or publisher who holds the copywright for the music.
Compare broadband packages via money.co.uk
