Webcaster Minimum Payments Due to SoundExchange by Feb. 1

If you are a broadcaster and also stream your broadcast on the web (i.e. “webcast”), you owe some money to SoundExchange by February 1. Webcasters need to make the minimum $500 fee per channel to SoundExchange by the February 1 deadline. If you are not webcasting, but plan to do so in the future, your payment to SoundExchange would be due no later than 45 days after you begin streaming.

Commercial webcasters – i.e. those that are not operated by non-profits, government agencies or schools – must also submit monthly reports of use identifying information about every song played during the month (also known as “census reporting”) no later than 45 days from the end of the month for which the report is being made.

Non-commercial webcasters – i.e. those that are operated by non-profits or government agencies but are not schools – are allowed to do sample reporting, whereby they submit quarterly reports showing two weeks’ worth of reporting. Sample reporting, however, is only available to those webcasters who stay under the 159,140 aggregate tuning hours per month. If a webcaster exceeds the tuning hours maximum in a month, it must revert to monthly census reporting.

Non-commercial educational webcasters – i.e. those operated by schools where a substantial portion of the staffing comes from students – that do not exceed 80,000 ATH per month can elect to pay an additional $100 fee for a waiver of the reporting requirements entirely. If the webcaster does not elect to pay the fee or the webcaster exceeds the 80,000 ATH per month, the station can do sample reporting showing two weeks’ worth of reporting per quarter. If the webcaster exceeds 159,140 ATH per month, it must do monthly census reporting.

All webcasters must also submit a statement of account with their $500 payment.