A Federal Court found today that AOL, Real Networks and Yahoo owe $100million to songwriters and composers as back payment for streaming music online.The court ruled on a request from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers to establish reasonable compensation for the playing of their works. Notably ASCAP represents writers and composers and not the record industry, so the request for money is on top of any existing licensing agreements with the RIAA and its constituent members. The court found that “reasonable license fees” are owing from AOL, RealNetworks, and Yahoo for the music streamed and distributed from their sites, retrospective to 2002, at a cost ASCAP counts at $100 million.http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/01/aol-realnetworks-and-yahoo-get-100-milliion-bill/
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9933626-7.html
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