Chicago-Based Online Music Streamer AccuRadio Responds to SoundExchange Lawsuit

CHICAGO, July 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to yesterday's press release from music royalties collective SoundExchange (SX) regarding its recent court filing against online music pioneer AccuRadio, the webcaster issued the following statement:

"SoundExchange's (SX) lawsuit against AccuRadio comes as a complete surprise to us, as we have been working with SX negotiating a fair and reasonable payment plan for several months now, working in what we believed was good faith from both parties," notes AccuRadio Founder/CEO Kurt Hanson. "In fact, we thought our latest proposal was being vetted by SX and would be adopted by the parties with few modifications." 

Hanson continued, "Rather than 'refusing to pay royalties,' as SX's press release states, in fact AccuRadio has been a consistently reliable SX licensee for the vast majority of the past 20+ years, having paid SX over $12,500,000 in royalties to date. SX's implication that AccuRadio hasn't paid royalties since 2018 is erroneous and fails to note that AccuRadio resumed full payments in early 2021 and continued until very recently."

The core problem for AccuRadio and for many other music services, Hanson notes, "is that royalty rates for music played on online radio are wildly higher than they are for other forms of radio.

"AM/FM stations pay no sound recording royalties for terrestrial broadcasts, and satellite radio is rumored to pay a royalty of about 15% of revenue," Hanson continues, "yet AccuRadio's SX royalty obligation in some months has worked out to be as high as 45% to 78% of its revenues."

Hanson observes, "The high music streaming royalty rates are particularly challenging for smaller and independent webcasters like AccuRadio that don't have deep pockets or multinational corporate parents."

Hanson concludes by saying that "At AccuRadio, we love the medium of online radio – with its ease-of-use, incredible variety, personalization features, and reasonable spot load – and we intend to continue to work with SX, either directly or via a judge, to enter into a fair and reasonable payment plan for past obligations and to resume current-period payments ASAP."

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SOURCE AccuRadio