Sirius XM Passes RIAA Tax On To Consumers

from the but-of-course dept

Not quite sure how I missed this earlier (update: oops, turns out we didn't miss it -- so consider this an encore presentation), but Bret alerts us to the news that with the ever increasing royalty rates pushed by the RIAA in the form of its "spin-off" Sound Exchange, and codified by the Copyright Royalty Board (for whom I still do not understand how anyone can justify its existence), that Sirius XM has simply added a $2 RIAA tax to everyone's monthly bills to help pay for the new performance royalties. Yup, because the RIAA and its members haven't been able to come up with a business model that works, they get the courts to tax you for listening to your satellite radio (on top of what you already pay and what they already pay to songwriters and publishers) and that gets passed on to you. Just imagine what will happen if the RIAA gets its wish and gets to add a similar tax to terrestrial radio stations as well. If you thought radio was chock full of commercials before...

Filed Under: performance royalties, radio, satellite radio, tax
Companies: riaa, sirius xm