Washington, DC - Jan 15, 2009 - Sound Exchange (SX) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) have reached an agreement on Internet performance royalties for non-commercial educational public radio entities to be paid to sound recording artists and copyright owners. The agreement establishes the amount of royalties that will be paid by CPB on behalf of the public radio system for streaming sound recordings on a variety of public radio websites during the period Jan. 1, 2005. through Dec. 31, 2010. The agreement was reached under the authority of the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008 (H.R. 7080) and will cover approximately 450 public radio webcasters including CPB supported stations, National Public Radio, NPR members, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters members, American Public Media, the Public Radio Exchange and Public Radio International.

Under the agreement, public radio webcasters will be entitled to alternative statutory royalties from those established by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) in May, 2007. Sound Exchange is to receive a single up-front royalty payment of $1.85 million together with consolidated usage and playlist reporting from CPB on behalf of the entire public radio system. NPR has also agreed, as a condition of the agreement, to withdraw its appeal of the May 2007 CRB royalty rate decision.

Consolidated reporting from CPB will improve the efficiency of the payment process helping to ensure that performers and sound recording copyright owners are accurately paid for the use of their recordings.