QUARTER OF A PENNY
FROM HEAVEN

It's almost unheard of for an online music company to sign a licensing agreement without a lawsuit. But EMusic.com and the Harry Fox Agency, a subsidiary of the National Music Publishers Association, have inked a stream-licensing pact.

Streaming royalties are all the rage with the kids and lawyers these days. On Friday (12/8), the U.S. Copyright Office declared that radio stations must pay additional royalties to record companies for streaming music online. And it was only last Thursday that the NMPA sued Universal Music over Farmclub.com's streaming service. Time sure flies when you're quibbling over micro-royalties!

But EMusic has always made much of its commitment to playing by the rules and cooperating with labels and artists. Through this deal, EMusic adds audio streaming to its EMusic Unlimited service, which currently offers all-you-can-eat MP3 downloading for $14.99 per-month. Terms of the pact call for EMusic to pay HFA a royalty fee of 1/4 of a cent the first time a song is streamed by a user. Harry Fox will have to wait until the money is in whole cents before it can collect, however.

"We are extremely pleased to continue our licensing relationship with EMusic," said Edward P. Murphy, the NMPA's President and CEO. "We believe that this streaming licensing agreement will lay the groundwork for the licensing of future streaming services. This means you, Farmclub!"

In a related story, EMusic only has 36,755, 328 more Napster users to bust.