[cma-l] Royalty payments

[Two Lochs Radio]

> I'm sorry but I fail to see where a community radio project can be given
> exemptions from royalty payments.
>
> Do you really see yourselves in the same light as a charity using music
> to raise awareness in life or death situations?

I'm not sure who's comment this was referring to, but please be assured my 
own comments certainly weren't meant to imply that I thought not-for-profit 
broadcasters should be exempt from royalty payments. I was simply urging 
that all not-for-profit/commn good/charitable community-based radio stations 
be considered together when it comes to collective negotiations with 
external bodies such as royalty collectors.

For ourselves we are perfectly happy to pay a fair share of royalty dues, 
which by the deliverations of the Copyright Tribunal should total around 
8-9% of broadcasting revenue for the three bodies together. Our main problem 
is the way they are sometimes calculated means that we pay a grossly 
disproportionate amount to some bodies, but not to others, depending on how 
they decide to proportion royalties, admin costs etc. Similar concerns apply 
to the Broadcasting licence. As a station with a TSA of under 1,700, you can 
imagine the charges seem a bit excessive with bodies who, for example, band 
together all stations of 100,000 or less for some purposes!

If there were good collective negotiations and distribution of charges, as 
for example the RadioCentre does for MCPS charges to ILR stations, then the 
administrative costs for the royalty bodies could be slashed, by dealing 
with one external body on behalf of all the tiny stations aggregated, and 
the properly due royalties could be carved up by those bodies more 
proportionally according to population or broadcast-related revenue.

I'm not sure how a charity using music to raise awareness of a life or death 
situation is any different from, for example, a community radio station 
using it in a feature to raise awareness about such matters, but in general 
as far as I know, charities have to pay for their use of electricity, 
petrol, printing, rent of conference space and so on, albeit sometimes with 
extra tax breaks, so it wouldn't seem inconsistent for them to have to pay 
music royalties when they use it. But that is something for them to 
negotiate to their best advantage like anythign else I guess.

Alex