Washington - After appearing to have reached a tentative deal last week on one of the more contentious new webcasting royalty rate hikes, the Digital Media Association (DiMA) -- which represents large webcasters like Yahoo and AOL -- said it will not accept an offer from SoundExchange to reduce a minimum per-channel fee cap that includes "unrelated technology mandates that have previously been rejected several times."

DiMA said that, during a House Energy and Commerce Committee roundtable last week, SoundExchange offered to cap a $500 per channel minimum fee at $50,000 annually through 2010.

In a statement issued Friday, SoundExchange said the offer would apply to "webcasters who agree to provide more detailed reporting of the music that they play and work to stop users from engaging in 'streamripping'," or recording Web radio streams.

"This is a disappointing turn after what we thought had been a very productive roundtable," said DiMA executive director Jonathan Potter.

"DiMA and our members are happy to cooperate on issues of common interest even if outside the scope of the CRB decision, but SoundExchange has demanded enforceable technology mandates that are unreasonable, unworkable and way off-topic. They seek to leverage this absurd fee to impose mandates that they have unsuccessfully sought elsewhere."

DiMA has offered to "discuss the establishment of working groups that would address other technical industry concerns" while meeting with SoundExchange to negotiate royalty rates for the 2006-2010 term.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/yprj8a (DMW previous coverage)

http://www.soundexchange.com

http://www.digmedia.org