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The Librarian of
Congress's decision on Internet radio royalty rates
is due on Thursday, June 20th.
Hopefully that decision will be a reasonable one and we
can all get back to business!
So on Monday, June 24th, look for a special
"Back to Business" issue
of RAIN, featuring a review of products and services
now available to our industry.
If you're a vendor, make sure your firm
is included! E-mail us by clicking here. |
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BY PAUL MALONEY
The U.S. Copyright Office has announced that there will be
"interim" reporting requirements detailed along with the
Librarian of Congress's determination for webcast royalties, expected
June 20th.
The Copyright Office revealed the data points for song identification
that these interim rules are "likely
to require" from webcasters:
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A. Artist
B. Title
C. Album (if available)
D. Label (if available)
E. Total number of performances |
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This is down significantly from the 18 data points on each
song that the RIAA and Sound Exchange had initially asked for (see
RAIN story here).
The Office, in its announcement,also indicated that the information
would be requested on a sampling basis,
that is, "for a certain period of time during each calendar quarter."
Copyright holders (record labels and artists)  had
asked for "census" reporting, or reporting of necessary
information for all performances.
And though there was no indication of exactly when more formalized
rules would be enacted ("after several months"), the announcement
does say that the "final requirements...are likely to include
more comprehensive reporting."
Last month, the Copyright Office held a public roundtable meeting
so parties with interest in the decisions made in the "Notice
of Recordkeeping" could voice their opinions (see RAIN
coverage here).
See the Copyright Office announcement here
(at the bottom of the page).
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This is ANOTHER step in the right direction!
It was the impression of many who attended last month's
Roundtable that Register of Copyrights Marybeth
Peters and Copyright Office general counsel David
Carson "weren't buying" arguments made
by SoundExchange and the RIAA for the more stringent reporting
requirements originally proposed.
This greatly simplified set of requirements seems to
validate that impression.
Of some concern, however, is the requirement to report
"total number of performances." The Office is probably
using the term "performances" as it's used in the
language of the DMCA (that is, one song heard by one listener
equals a performance). If that's the case, these rules will
require webcasters to determine how many people are listening
to each song, something that some webcasters have indicated
they're incapable of doing.
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Hanson to Copyright Office:
"Find a reasonable cost-benefit relationship"
RAIN's Kurt Hanson participated
in the Copyright Office public roundtable on recordkeeping last
month. It may be reasonable to think that the Copyright Office,
in their determination of the interim recordkeeping rules, may
have considered some of the same ideas as Kurt was suggesting.
From the roundtable transcripts: "As you make your
decisions," Kurt said, "[I urge you to consider this
question]: What do you need to give each side that has a reasonable
cost-benefit relationship?
"You can have people spend, to do what the reporting
for compliance that is being asked for, would be billions
of [data] records of information per year...
"[But] you've got to think, well,
what's the balance? How
much better is that than if somebody does an all-Metallica radio
station, the copyright holder notices, informs the RIAA. They
listen, they find it and they take it off the air.
It's not that hard. It doesn't require delivering the billions
of pieces of data.
"The main point is that the CARP process covered
the really big guys -- that was the billion dollar corporations
were involved in that. The college radio stations, I think,
are pretty clear and the non-commercials deserve some special
treatment.
"The in-between ground, on the other hand, and the
small market broadcasters, that's the
vibrancy of the industry and the majority of listening
in the industry and what you can do to keep them alive would
be something that would be very helpful."
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From the LA Times: "From the Middle East to
the South Pacific, renegade online movie and music services are
setting up
shop in far-off lands to dodge international copyright rules.
"The maneuvering complicates efforts by Hollywood studios,
record labels and other copyright holders to clamp down on online
piracy, which is eating into profits and threatening the entertainment
industry's way of doing business...
"Lawyers for the studios and the labels say they still
have plenty of legal weapons to bring to bear against offshore pirates,
even if they land in hostile territory. The problem, copyright experts
say, is in enforcing court orders and making sure an illegal operation
stays down after it is knocked offline...
"Nearly 150 countries have signed the Bern
Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works,
a treaty governing copyright.
"That treaty sets minimum levels of copyright protection
and requires countries to provide the legal means to enforce those
rights, said Fritz Attaway, executive vice president and Washington
general counsel for the Motion
Picture Assn. of America.
"The treaty doesn't spell out the enforcement measures,
'so there's great variances in the ease with which remedies can
be
exercised,' Attaway said. The World Trade Organization provides
trade remedies against countries that fail to enforce copyrights,
but the WTO doesn't reach as many countries as the Bern Convention.
"In the US, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act requires
Internet service providers to respond quickly when their networks
are used to transmit pirated works. When the Internet company is
overseas, copyright owners have to ask US service providers to block
traffic coming from those Internet addresses -- a much trickier
task."
Read this entire story from the LA Times here.
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From the New York Times: "Anyone looking for
the next big thing in Silicon Valley should stop here at Layne Holt's
garage.
"Mr. Holt and his business partner, John Furrier [at
right in Times photo], both software engineers, have started
a company with a shoestring budget and an ambitious target: the
cable and phone companies that currently hold a near-monopoly on
high-speed access for the 'last mile' between the Internet and the
home.
"At the core of their plan is the inexpensive wireless
data standard known as Wi-Fi or 802.11b, which is already shaking
up the communications industry, threatening to undermine the business
plans of cellular phone companies by  offering
a much cheaper method for mobile access to the Internet.
"The pair's company, known as Etherlinx,
has taken the 802.11b standard and used it to build a system that
can transmit Internet data up to 20 miles at high speeds —
enough to blanket entire urban regions and make cable or D.S.L.
connections obsolete.
"Their secret weapon is a technology known as a 'software-designed
radio,'which has permitted them to create an
inexpensive repeater antenna that can be attached to the outside
of a customer's home. The device, which the Etherlinx executives
said they believe can be built in quantity for less than $150 each,
would communicate with a central antenna and then convert the signals
into the industry-standard Wi-Fi, or wireless fidelity, signal for
reception inside the home..."
Read this entire piece in today's New York Times,
or online here.
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| June 13-15, 2002 |
R&R
Convention 2002: Beverly Hills, CA |
| July 8-9, 2002 |
PLUG.IN:
Jupiter Music Forum: New York, NY |
| July 25-28, 2002 |
The
Conclave 2002 Learning Conference: Minneapolis, MN |
| Sept. 12-14, 2002 |
NAB
Radio Show 2002: Seattle, WA |
| Oct. 1-4, 2002 |
Streaming
Media East: New York, NY |
| Oct. 30-Nov. 2,
2002 |
CMJ
Music Marathon 2002: New York, NY |
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