September 25, 2012

This past Friday, lawmakers introduced the Internet Radio Fairness Act to the House of Representatives. This bill calls for a shift from the crippling “willing buyer, willing seller” standard of royalty rates, which currently apply to online music services including Pandora and iHeartRadio, to a reasonable calculation that is used for more traditional formats including Sirius XM Radio. It’s leveling the playing field for all distributors of digital content.

BitTorrent has been working with artists for the past year to help them gain exposure to our audience of 160+ million users. We’ve even been experimenting with methods for artists to profit from giving away exclusive content. And we’ve delivered – to the tune of 124+ million legal music downloads in the first six months of 2012.

To paraphrase, we believe artists benefit from online distribution and this bill will make it possible for services like Pandora, who currently pays nearly 50% of their revenues in royalties, to continue creating channels for exposure, diversity, and profitable opportunities for artists. Everyone wins.

How can you help? All it takes is one call. Click here, enter your zip code, and urge your Representative to vote “yes” on the Internet Radio Fairness Act.