Radio stations appeal Internet royalty decision

Radio stations have asked a federal appeals court to rule that they do not have to pay musicians and recording companies when they play music on the Internet because they do not pay royalties for regular, over-the-air broadcasts.

In a motion filed late Monday, a group of radio stations said a federal court in Philadelphia and the U.S. Copyright Office had misinterpreted the law when they said that radio stations had to to pay musicians and recording companies when they “stream” their songs over the Internet.

Here’s a
summary of the Librarian’s determination and the
full text of the regulations adopted by the Librarian (http://www.copyright.gov/carp/webcasting_rates_final.html).

To subscribe to the U.S. Copyright Offices Newsletter, fill out the form at:
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/newsnet/subchange.html.

The Register’s recommendation and the Librarian’s order will
be available to the public next week.

**********************************************************
* CALENDAR *

July 1: Expected effective date of Copyright Office fee
changes (67 FR 38003)

July 1: Beginning of 60-day period when, in the absence of a
license agreement, a party with a significant interest in
establishing reasonable terms and rates for certain
statutory licenses may file a petition to initiate a rate
setting proceeding (67 FR 4472)

October 7: Initiation date should arbitration proceedings be
necessary in adjustment of rates and terms for noncommercial
educational broadcasting compulsory license

I just came a cross an unusually understandable CARP Fact Sheet over on the Future of Music Coalition website.

Here’s a Christian Science Monitor piece by James Turner on the countdown to James H. Billington’s pending decision on the CARP webcasting rates:
Why Internet radio may fade.

The Librarian of Congress is usually not considered a magnet for controversy.

But on June 20th, the eyes of Internet broadcasters and music industry insiders will focus on James H. Billington as he decides what royalties Internet radio stations will pay to record labels.

Depending on how the rates are set, some insiders believe the announcement could put some Web broadcasters out of business.

The issue of Internet-radio royalties was first raised when Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998. This law, intended to strengthen the copyright protections of digital media such as software and CDs, also required the recording industry to negotiate with Internet broadcasters to determine how much artists should be paid when their music is played on an Internet radio station.

The sides failed to reach an agreement, so Congress directed Mr. Billington to form a panel to set the rates.

The Librarian of Congress and Register of Copyrights aren’t buying into the CARP Panel determinations. Check out my O’Reilly Weblog on the subject.

Brian Zisk explains the nuts and bolts of the RIAA’s plan to make webcasting too expensive for anyone but the majors (and all in the name of record keeping and compulsory license fees).

CNET Expert Sound-Off – The law that could kill Webcasting

One proposed reporting requirement that particularly infuriates Webcasters is the need for each and every Webcaster to waste huge amounts of resources entering loads of data already known by the copyright holders. No one disputes the need to submit information uniquely identifying each song since reporting is needed to ensure that copyright holders are compensated when their music is Webcast. The DMCA itself requires that only three data fields be displayed to the listener: the title of the sound recording, the album title, and the name of the featured recording artist. These basic pieces of information also seem to satisfy songwriting organizations such as ASCAP and BMI. Now, let’s take a look at what the copyright office wants Webcasters to submit for each and every song that they play–information that in most cases the RIAA’s SoundExchange database already has or that is totally irrelevant to the reason for the reporting requirements, ostensibly to ensure that copyright owners receive reasonable notice of the use of their sound recordings. The copyright office’s list or requirements reads as follows:

A) The name of the service
B) The channel of the program (AM/FM stations use station ID)
C) The type of program (archived/looped/live)
D) Date of transmission
E) Time of transmission
F) Time zone of origination of transmission
G) Numeric designation of the place of the sound recording within the program
H) Duration of transmission (to nearest second)
I) Sound-recording title
J) The ISRC code of the recording
K) The release year of the album per copyright notice, and in the case of compilation albums, the release year of the album and copyright date of the track
L) Featured recording artist
M) Retail album title
N) The recording label
O) The UPC code of the retail album
P) The catalog number
Q) The copyright owner information
R) The musical genre of the channel or program (station format)

This is absurd! All that’s reasonably needed is enough information to uniquely identify the track, when it was played, and how many people were listening.

Here’s a little update on the webcasting compulsory licensing fee situation going on over at the U.S. Copyright Office.

The latest word is that the U.S. Copyright Office is calling for a “public roundtable discussion” on May 10th (more on this later…):
Check out John Borland’s story for ZD Net:
Feds want to thrash out Webcasting.

The CARP (Copyright Abritration Royalty Panel) webcasting rates have just been released today.

These proceedings set the compulsory licensing fee rates for webcasting.

I’m just taking a look at these myself so stay tuned…