By David Oxenford on Posted in Broadcast Performance Royalty,Intellectual Property,Internet Radio,Music RightsIn a very important proceeding we summarized here, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division is reviewing the antitrust consent decrees that govern ASCAP and BMI – the decrees that require that these performing rights organizations treat similarly situated licensees (and artists) in the same way and which allow a Court to review the reasonableness of… Continue Reading
By David Oxenford on Posted in Broadcast Performance Royalty,Intellectual Property,Internet Radio,Music Rights,UncategorizedThe Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division yesterday announced that it was starting a review of the ASCAP and BMI antitrust consent decrees that govern the United States’ two largest performing rights organizations for musical compositions (referred to as the “musical work”). The DOJ’s announcement of the initiation of the examination of the consent decrees poses… Continue Reading
By David Oxenford on Posted in Broadcast Performance Royalty,Intellectual Property,Internet Radio,Music Rights,On Line MediaRecently, the Radio Music License Committee sent out a memo to broadcasters about a July 8, 2019 SoundExchange payment deadline for pre-1972 sound recordings. As with everything in copyright law, the issues surrounding pre-1972 sound recordings are complicated, and the RMLC notice, while seemingly straightforward, still resulted in our receiving lots of questions. These questions… Continue Reading
By David Oxenford on Posted in Cable Carriage,Intellectual Property,Internet Radio,Music RightsWith the Copyright Royalty Board now in the early stages of the next proceeding to consider webcasting royalties (see our article here) as well as other proceedings including the distribution of cable and satellite television royalties to TV programmers (see these CRB notices), the Chief Judge of the CRB, Suzanne Barnett, announced her retirement earlier… Continue Reading
By David Oxenford on Posted in Broadcast Performance Royalty,Intellectual Property,Internet Radio,Music Rights,On Line MediaLast week, we noted that the Copyright Royalty Board had a notice on its website saying that, because of the government shutdown, it could not publish its notice soliciting petitions to participate in WEB V, the case to set webcasting royalties paid to SoundExchange by noninteractive webcasters (including broadcasters who simulcast their programming on the… Continue Reading
By David Oxenford on Posted in Intellectual Property,Internet Radio,Music RightsUpdate – January 24, 2019 – the notice seeking petitions to participate has been published in the Federal Register, setting a filing deadline of February 4, 2019. See our article here for more details. In our summary of January regulatory issues for broadcasters, we suggested that the Copyright Royalty Board this month might start WEB… Continue Reading
By David Oxenford on Posted in Intellectual Property,Internet Radio,Music RightsIn one of those year-end decisions that got lost in the holiday rush, in late November, the Copyright Royalty Board issued its final ruling on the rates to be paid to SoundExchange by “business establishment services” for the ephemeral copies of sound recordings when these music services transmit programming to their customers. We wrote about… Continue Reading
By David Oxenford on Posted in Intellectual Property,Internet Radio,Music RightsThe US Court of Appeals today released a decision upholding the Copyright Royalty Board’s 2015 decision setting the SoundExchange royalty rates for 2016-2020. We wrote about that decision here, and provided more details here. In any appeal of an agency decision, the Court routinely affords the agency deference in reaching its decision. The Court will… Continue Reading
By David Oxenford on Posted in Broadcast Performance Royalty,Intellectual Property,Internet Radio,Music RightsTwo years ago, a District Court Judge, in a case brought against a broadcaster alleging that the broadcaster owed money under California state law for playing pre-1972 sound recordings, dismissed the suit finding that the broadcaster was playing digitized versions of those songs, created after 1972, which were covered under Federal copyright law (we wrote… Continue Reading
By David Oxenford on Posted in Broadcast Performance Royalty,Intellectual Property,Internet Radio,Music RightsIn the last year, the popularity of Alexa, Google Home and similar “smart speaker” devices has led to discussions at almost every broadcast conference of how radio broadcasters should embrace the technology as the new way for listeners to access radio programming in their homes. Broadcasters are urged to adopt strategies to take advantage of the… Continue Reading
By David Oxenford on Posted in Intellectual Property,Internet Radio,Music Rights,On Line MediaThe week before last, we summarized the provisions of the Music Modernization Act as passed by the House of Representatives. The Senate is now poised to take up this legislation in a hearing scheduled by the Senate Judiciary Committee for next Tuesday, May 15. The legislation proposes, among other things, to set up a SoundExchange-like… Continue Reading
By David Oxenford on Posted in Intellectual Property,Internet Radio,Music RightsThis week, the US House of Representatives passed the Music Modernization Act. While widely supported among many digital media companies providing on-demand subscription music services as well as by many in the music industry, the bill seemingly has not received the publicity that has been afforded to past music royalty legislation. That may be, in… Continue Reading
By David Oxenford on Posted in Intellectual Property,Internet Radio,Music RightsLast week, the Copyright Royalty Board published a Federal Register Notice announcing that SoundExchange was auditing broadcaster Alpha Media as well as Music Choice and Google to assess their compliance with the statutory music licenses provided by Sections 112 and 114 of the Copyright Act for the public performance of sound recordings and ephemeral copies… Continue Reading
By David Oxenford on Posted in Intellectual Property,Internet Radio,Music RightsThe amount paid to songwriters and publishing companies for the making of “phonorecords” will be going up after a Copyright Royalty Board decision just released to the parties to the case. A summary of the findings have been published on the CRB website, here. The new rules are available here. A full decision explaining the… Continue Reading
