Siris XM today has paid a large sum of money for playing background music without paying the copyright owners any using the music in their background music business.
The record companies: Capitol Records LLC, Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings Inc, Warner Music Group and copyrights owner ABKCO will receive a share of $210 for the use of their copyrights within the USA up to a date in 2017. Thereafter Sirus will be required to negotiate and agree new licenses with each copyright holder.
This comes as quite a shock for an industry where businesses will only survive if their integrity is trusted by their customers and that the music they are playing is fully, and legally licensed for the use for which they sell it to their customers as part of their business service.
Will Sirus pass this cost to their clients remains to be seen but I would think it is doubtful considering their clients had already purchased services with licensing included (in certain circumstances).
The problem business clients have with organisations similar to Sirus is that to use their service proprietary equipment is needed to be purchased or leased over a period of time, so its not so easy to get out of a service contract if you have invested heavily in hardware.
