Tech Shout!

A New York federal court has made a public decision according to which Time Warner Inc’s AOL unit, RealNetworks and Yahoo may have to pay fair royalties to songwriters and publishers. This amount of royalty that will be paid to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) may come up to $100 million.

The Court said that online music providers will have to pay 2.5% of the money that they have earned from music since July 1, 2002 until December 31, 2009.

“The Court’s finding represents a major step toward proper valuation of the music contributions of songwriters, composers and publishers to these types of online businesses — many of which have built much of their success on the foundation of the creative works of others,” said Marilyn Bergman, ASCAP President and Chairman.

“It is critical that these organizations share a reasonable portion of their sizable revenues with those of us whose content attracts audiences and, ultimately, helps to make their businesses viable. This decision will go a long way toward protecting the ability of songwriters and composers to be compensated fairly as the use of musical works online continues to grow,” Bergman continued.

Earlier ASCAP had argued in Court that nearly 320,000 members were not paid a fair share for the work done by them that helped three online services providers to increase traffic and revenue.