Reservoir Commends U.S. Copyright Royalty Board Phonorecords III Ruling

NEW YORK, July 06, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reservoir Media, Inc. (NASDAQ:RSVR ) ("Reservoir" or the "Company"), an award-winning independent music company, today commended the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board's (CRB) long-awaited decision to uphold increased mechanical streaming royalty rates for songwriters and music publishers, retroactive to the beginning of 2018. In a ruling issued on July 1, 2022, the CRB reaffirmed raising the minimum statutory mechanical streaming royalty rates incrementally from 10.5% to 15.1% over the years 2018-2022, rejecting an appeal by several digital service providers (DSPs). The 2018 rate increase was appealed in 2020 by a group of DSPs, including Spotify, Amazon, Google, and Pandora, causing a delay in its implementation, and withholding significant increased royalties that would have been paid to songwriters and music publishers through 2022. The CRB III decision reinstates the 15.1% increase for the year 2022, and with this decision, the DSPs must now pay music publishers, including Reservoir, the previously withheld revenues. However, the decision overturned Total Content Cost and bundle ... Full story available on Benzinga.com