RADIO SANTISIMO and SOUNDEXCHANGE: A Journey

Radio Santisimo Sacramento Shares Experience with SoundExchange

Lorena Albarran, President, Radio Santisimo Sacramento

February 1, 2021

In September 2020, we realized for the first time that SoundExchange existed and that it was the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB)-designated company which collects royalties for webcast music performances. It looked like they checked our website and realized that there was the option to “Listen Live” which they monitored and realized that we played music. They immediately contacted me with information where they explained how to register, along with other requirements and questions.

We consulted with communications attorney, D. Kelly, and he told us that we should actually pay and keep up with this because this is serious; the fines from the Copyright Royalty Board are for more than ten thousand dollars for breach of this license.

By October, we declared that we have webcasting since 2013. We paid all fees for each year, $500, and we still have to pay the fines for delayed reporting.

They explained to us that we also must report the music we have played in all these years.

As an act of goodwill, we were forgiven the report requirement for the years 2013 to 2019. We only have to send a letter where we declare an approximate account of musical time and the reasons for why we do not have the records.

As of November, we started reporting two weeks per quarters in 2020. We made an account and accessed SoundExchange’s complicated reporting system. They provided instructions for filling in information and using various macros for reporting. Once the list of songs that were played was established, (Simian gave us an affidavit of this), we had to look for all the information we were missing. In some cases, we had a composer, but no record label. In other cases, we were missing the correct name of the song, or the album.

After extensive data collection, we filled it out, but the International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) numbers were unavailable. We did more research only to realize that most Catholic singers (especially in Spanish) are not commercial, do not have a record label, and do not have an ISRC number. We still put in everything we could.

In addition, SoundExchange asked for two additional bits of somewhat complex data: the ATP (Actual Total Performance), which is the number of minutes in which music is played and the ATH (Aggregate Tunning hours), which is the average number of people listening to the webstream at any given time. Our streaming provider, Miriam Technology, were able to calculate the ATH, but not the ATP. We set for ourselves the task of making a logical calculation with the SIMIAN reports to determine ATP.

SoundExchange did not accept our math which we believe is a very real estimate. At a meeting in December, SoundExchange offered as the only possibility that we would change our Catholic stream provider to one of the vendors from their list who can generate those reports. This was unacceptable for us; we clearly specified that we preferred to stop playing music before switching from the only Catholic streaming provider. At this stage, they became more amenable with regard to accepting our reports but they still insisted that we switch to one of their preferred providers. I replied with this email:

At this point, we consulted again with our attorney, D. Kelly, and began to take a look at other Spanish web streamers.We learned that if a singer gave us his permission to play his music, then SoundExchange does allow streaming of this content without problem.  I took on the task of asking several Catholic singers to give us their signed approval to play their music. I received some permissions in the first week.

In January 2021, I let SoundExchange know that most Catholic artists have never received a single penny from them and that I had obtained permission from four artists and would keep looking for more, I sent SoundExchange the letters of consent and a link with the publication I made on my website. I let my audience know that I have permission from the artist to play his music:

1. This week I received an email from SoundExchange telling me that our case was already closed and that everything had been in our file.

In the event our station finds the possibility of continuing to work with our streaming provider along with a way to help us generate the infamous music report, we may choose to report and pay through SoundExchange, in the future.

Below, you will see the agreement templates (EN & SP) we contracted with the artists. This is the link on my webpage so you can see these permissions signed.

NOTE FROM CRA:  In this situation, the artists were in a position to sign off on the performance royalties, entirely.  When using this template, make sure that the artists with whom you are entering into contract do not have any other interested parties, owed royalties, performing on the tracks which will be played on your webstream. Also, this contract does not negate royalties potentially owed to composers who may be due royalties from ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC resulting from licensed sound recordings broadcast over the air from terrestrial stations.