The legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which forms part of the committee’s legal team, says that the Copyright Royalty Board in its 2021 rate adjustment “set [music streaming] rates that are 18 times higher for religious noncommercial webcasters with an audience above a modest 218-listener threshold than the average rate for secular NPR stations.”
John Bursch, the vice president of appellate advocacy at ADF, told CNA that the royalty board offered “no real justification” for the higher rates it mandated in 2021.
“They didn’t justify it other than to say there are some noncommercial nonreligious broadcasters who have to pay the same rates,” Bursch said. The Copyright Royalty Board did not respond to CNA’s requests for comment over the dispute.
Bursch gave an example of what he said was the stark fee disparities mandated by the 2021 rates.
“Let’s say you had a Christian station webcasting 15 Christian songs per hour,” he said.
“They’d have to pay $257,000 to play those annually, but an NPR station would have to pay $18,000.”
Religious stations “need to keep their audience intentionally low to not hit those fees,” Bursch said.
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