trade group

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) in Washington ruled Thursday that music publishers and artists are entitled to a royalty payment of just more than nine cents for each track sold online. In addition, the CRB established a royalty rate of 24 cents for content used as ringtones.

The ruling is the first to formally establish a rate for digital downloads. Until now, online stores such as Apple's iTunes Store had been paying the same rate paid to artists for CD tracks. The new ruling will remain in place until 2012, bringing a level of predictability to the online music industry.

On Thursday, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) in Washington, D.C., is scheduled to vote on a request by the National Music Publishers Association to increase the royalties paid to its members for online music sales. Artists are currently paid a royalty of nine cents and want the CRB to increase it to 15 cents.

The move is opposed by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Digital Media Association, a trade group of online music retailers that includes AOL, Apple, MusicNet, Napster, RealNetworks and Yahoo.