The Copyright Royalty Board reached a conclusion yesterday on the highly debated case about royalty rates paid for CDs and downloadable songs. The rates will remain the same for all online stores.

The Board’s members decided that the labels will have to pay the same 9.1 cents, rejecting the National Music Publishers Association’s request for an upgraded fee of at least 15 cents per tune.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) brought into discussion the fact that the sales of digital music were boosted by 46 percent, reaching $1.2 billion and the trend is very likely to continue. In addition to that, CD sales dropped with more than 20 percent to $7.4 billion. These facts, in the Association’s opinion, should have been sufficient for the Board to understand that the sales will continue in one form or another at a similar pace or on a bigger scale, ensuring that the companies involved will be able to deal with some new royalty fees and also keep making a good profit.

Apple’s iTunes was one of the businesses that might have gone under if the measure was approved, as its officials explained that the increased costs would have caused it to take a loss with each sold song. According to its officials’ statement, even though it recorded total sales of over 5 billion songs since its launch, iTunes currently operates on minimal profit and any sort of royalty increase would have been decisive for its future. Apple executive Eddy Cue said: "Apple has repeatedly made clear that it is in this business to make money and would most likely not continue to operate iTS (the iTunes Store) if it were no longer possible to do so profitably."

Another decision reached by the Copyright Royalty Board involves the new royalty rates set for ringtones, which are now of 24 cents per song.

The Digital Media Association, whose members include online music stores such as Apple, Amazon.com and Best Buy, was extremely pleased with the decision. Jonathan Potter, the Association’s executive director, explained that the decision to keep the rates at the same level will significantly help digital services and retailers in their quests to innovate and grow over the next several years.

The ruling was given by a panel of three judges appointed by the Librarian of Congress, and it only concerns mechanical royalties, which are only given to songwriters and publishers of music. The decision will be addressed again in 2012 and until then, everyone will just have to deal with the present situation and make the best of it.

Once the decision was announced, all sides appeared pleased with the outcome, and David Israelite, president and CEO of the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) stating that "The fact that we did not get any cuts, we view as a big positive," and also adding that the decision is a big victory for everyone who cares about music. He also dismissed the scenario presented by Apple about its iTunes service going under because of a higher rate.