CQ TODAY
April 9, 2007 – 8:06 p.m.
Pressure Builds to Address Copyright Issues
By Kathryn A. Wolfe, CQ Staff

At the dawn of the 20th century, the nascent American music industry turned to Congress to protect its copyrights from an emerging technology that allowed song performances to be duplicated like never before: piano rolls.

When Congress last addressed the issue nearly a decade ago (PL 105-304), thorny intellectual-property concerns surrounding digital technology were still over the horizon.

Now, with streaming Internet radio, webcasts and iTunes changing the way music is copied and distributed, there is wide agreement that it’s time to bring copyright laws up to date again. Billions of dollars are at stake, and reaching consensus won’t be easy.

Competing segments of the industry — songwriters, artists, record labels and digital media concerns — can’t agree on how to change the law. That leaves it to Capitol Hill to choose a path that inevitably will create winners and losers, something the previous two Congresses were unwilling to do.

“The situation is worse, new issues are arising and the likelihood of reaching consensus has lessened considerably,” Marybeth Peters, register of copyrights at the U.S. Copyright Office, said at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the subject last month. “The Copyright Office . . . has updated its regulations in response to industry petitions to make it work better, and we may continue to do so, but regulatory action won’t solve the problem. Substantive legislative reform is needed.”
Ambiguous Rules

The first law regulating musical performance copyrights dates to 1909. But like player pianos a century ago, digital music is impacting today’s entertainment industry in ways Congress never anticipated when it last updated the statute, in 1998.

Digital music providers, such as Apple Inc.’s iTunes and RealNetworks Inc.’s Rhapsody, want to streamline distribution by making it easier to obtain copyright permission from music publishers, artists and composers. The recording industry wants to protect its profits from Internet piracy and music swapping. Artists seek to maintain maximum control over their work and reap the financial benefits.

Meanwhile, some consumer groups fear changes to the law that would restrict what individuals do with digital music files. And companies that make electronics and satellite radio components generally oppose language that would curtail the use of their products.

Jim DeLong, a senior fellow at the free market think tank Progress and Freedom Foundation, said much of the problem stems from the inflexibility of the law, because it has been modified over the years to deal with discrete technologies.

The 1998 law, known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, is ambiguous about how to handle licensing for online copying and distribution technologies that were never anticipated. Among the unresolved questions are those surrounding who should be paid royalties and under what portion of the copyright law they should be classed.

Internet broadcasters, for instance, are required to pay royalties to artists for playing their songs, while over-the-air radio stations pay no such fees. There is an argument over whether a streaming broadcast is a “performance,” which requires royalty payments to artists, or a “distribution,” which requires payments to the record companies.

Partly because of the copyright law’s ambiguities, only an estimated 50 percent to 70 percent of musical works are available for purchase from legitimate music services, according to Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property. This stands in stark contrast to the plethora of files that can be downloaded illegally from services that don’t have to worry about licensure or copyright burdens.

“At the macro level, parties agree that rampant piracy over peer-to-peer networks creates a dire need to address digital music licensing reform,” Berman, a friend of the entertainment industry that is a cog in his Los Angeles district’s economy, said at a recent subcommittee hearing. “I fear that if we do not address reforms soon, legitimate music services will not be able to compete with free [services] or provide consumers with their choice of music.”

Berman said almost 20 billion files were downloaded illegally in 2005 alone. Meanwhile, the music industry is slumping, with overall sales down 10 percent and CD sales down 20 percent so far this year, according to the Wall Street Journal.
‘Everybody Has a Piece’

Current law requires music services to locate individual copyright owners and negotiate rights with each of them for every song they want to offer, creating extra red tape and, in some cases, dissuading distributors from even trying to make their products available digitally.

“These laws arise in the context of a technology, and so people . . . essentially disaggregated rights of all sorts,” DeLong said. “So you have the rights split among the songwriters, recording people and artists, and everybody has a piece of it. With the digital age there’s no way to go back and get all those rights back together.”

Last year, Congress tried to address the problem with legislation that would have created a blanket license for digital performance, distribution and reproduction rights, as well as a one-stop shop where those rights could be obtained.

But an array of interests, including some consumer groups such as Public Knowledge, opposed the measure, in part because it would have required licensing and royalty payments for “incidental” copies of music, such as files stored temporarily on a hard drive as part of a digital transmission. The measure was never enacted.

A senior House Republican aide said the issue is at the forefront of the subcommittee’s agenda.

“A great deal of progress was made with that bill, but there were some outstanding issues,” the aide said. “Hopefully, we can build on that process. It’s clearly a priority for the leadership of the subcommittee.”

Meanwhile, Peters said an overhaul of the current law is urgent to prevent more losses by legitimate businesses to free services that enable pirated file sharing.

“The question is, do you have the stamina to say: ‘This is something we want to do,’ and move it forward?” Peters asked members of the subcommittee. “It really does take political will, and it does take this committee getting involved and deciding what it thinks is best.”

“So you’re saying we’re going to have to make tough decisions?” Berman teased at one point.

“I’m saying that I think the time has come,” Peters answered.
Source: CQ Today
Round-the-clock coverage of news from Capitol Hill.

Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, is a friend of the entertainment industry that is a cog in his Los Angeles district’s economy.

“So you’re saying we’re going to have to make tough decisions?” Berman teased at one point.


Hey, Berman, I hate to bring this up, but . . . the dishonorable honchos in the entertainment industry that you represent had myriads of opportunities to make some "tough" but APPROPRIATE decisions regarding their business models in this modern digital age, but they failed to do so!
Notwithstanding, go ahead and humor their misguided mindset, anyway; I'm rather irked to have to admit nobody is likely to stop you guys. In fact, I see both political parties as being disposed to cave in to vested intellectual property interests across a wide spectrum of issues, globally even.

Where are consumer rights?
Where is the original intent of copyright laws?
[furious expletive deleted]

"The recording industry wants to protect its profits from internet piracy and music swapping."

By means of oppressive litigation, yeah.
They're heavy on reactionary methods.
But notably absent are positive steps, things the cartel could have done to improve the situation for most everyone concerned, including themselves! Instead, like a horse's ass, they dragged their feet and pouted...and then brandished their DRM and lawsuits.
Dorks!
Let 'em suffer the consequences of their own lousy decision-making!

Unless Dubya is reading my Emails and clicking on the links to here, the problems with the music industry is that the only voice heard is the RIAA's half-truths and outright lies.
I say we take up a collection and have Schmoo take Dubya to lunch one day.

No one really expects CONGRESS to do anything smart about copyright issues, do you? After all, how much have the people who want real reform given to their local Congressman?? Likely not as much as the RIAA and Music Lobby has. So do you really think Congress gives a rats ass about protecting fair use rights???

They will ONLY if their election depends on it. Let them know if they screw up Copyright reform this time, they will be out of a job.

Better yet, vote for anything that is NOT a Democrat or Republican. Both get money from the RIAA and support their demands.

would be great if we could get orginized enough and get the numbers nessicary to create a lobby group of our own.

... elections have consequences, at least they should have..

elections these days all you can hope for is that the most corrupt politition doesnt get elected.