AfterDawn: News

Sirius XM customers will pay fees for royalties

Sirius XM is passing on $2 fees to its customers in order to raise money to pay performance royalty fees intended for singers, musicians and of course, record companies. In the Sirius / XM deal, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) barred Sirius XM from raising prices on customers for three years. However, the FCC did permit the collection of fees through a separate surcharge after a year.

The company began charging customers the additional fee in August, and claims to have notified all customers by e-mail and postal mail of the new charges. Lauren Weinstein, a tech blogger and commentator, noticed the $2 fee added to his bill but claims he did not get any notification beforehand of the new fee.

"Money is money to the customer at the other end ... A couple of bucks here, a couple of bucks there, it all adds up to something real," Weinstein said. Sirius customers with a lifetime subscription won't have to pay the fee, nor will any who subscribe to news, sports and talk radio packages which feature little music content.,



Those on annual or monthly year contracts will pay the fee upon subscription renewal.

Written by: James Delahunty @ 2 Oct 2009 2:18

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• 5 comments

• bc12

  I've been a Sirius customer for over 4 years and luv it but I may be cancelling their service if this stuff keeps happening. I for one was not notified by email about these extra costs which I found out about in my account. IMO they are playing with fire and might get burnt if they keep this up.If you're reading this anybody at Sirius be careful you might start to lose some customers with these extra costs especially in these economic times.

  2.10.2009 13:05 #1

• jimbo70

  I've been a customer of Sirius' for about 4 years now also. I pay for 2 years at a time (kicking myself for not getting lifetime subscription when I first joined). The way the prices are going up a little at a time & the competition with XM is gone to keep prices down I'm almost definitely going to be just using an MP3 playing in my vehicle when my current subscription runs out. Overall it's a great service & I cringe on the few times I listen to the radio with commercials but there's only so much I'm willing to pay.

  2.10.2009 17:26 #2

• m3_chris

  They are passing the fees on to you. What do you guys expect them to do just eat it? They are not going to stay in business doing that. It's not like they just decided to raise the price and pocket the extra money.

  3.10.2009 01:18 #3

• mike.m

  Quote:A couple of bucks here, a couple of bucks there, it all adds up to something real…
  
  Yeah, and that "something real" is somebody cashing in.
  
  Quote:...to raise money to pay performance royalty fees intended for singers, musicians and of course, record companies.
  
  Let's see how this money will split, it will probably take the same path as music CD's. $1.90 for the record companies. $0.10 for the artists.

  3.10.2009 15:03 #4

• DADEO1

  "claims to have notified all customers by e-mail and postal mail of the new charges"
  No way, I've never recieved to this day anything. I thought I had a hole in my pocket, but it's just my Sirius account.

  8.10.2009 09:39 #5