It’s not often that enough exciting things happen in the world of copyright or even the broader category of intellectual property that we can give a week in review. Usually us practitioners are happy with a year in review. Congress, in the week preceding their recess, got busy on voting on copyright and other IP issues.
The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008: On September 28th, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed S. 3325 (the PRO-IP Bill). Earlier in the week the bill had passed the Senate. The President is expected to sign the bill into law.
Most significantly, the bill creates an executive level “Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator” requiring Senate confirmation. The new IP Czar and her/his staff will report directly to the President and Congress on domestic intellectual property issues and is tasked with creating a nationwide plan to combat piracy. The IP Czar will coordiatate both state and federal piracy efforts for copyright, trademark and patent law matters. Be watching for more details on the bill on this Blog.
Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008 (H.R. 7084): Pursuant to 17 U.S.C. 114, webcasters pay royalties to sound recording owners for the digital public performance of the recordings. The webcasters have long proclaimed the rates handed down by the Copyright Royalty Board, which are based upon per-play calcuations, are too high and if continued will force many webcasters off the air. The legislation grants an extension until February 2009 for the webcasters and Sound Exchange, the agency that collects the royalty, to determine an alternative royalty rate structure. H.R. 7084 pased the House on September 27, 2008 and the Senate on September 30, 2008. The President is expected to sign the bill.
Copyright Royalty Board Compulsory Rates Decision: The Copyright Royalty Board announced on October 2, 2008, mechanical rate terms for physical products (such as CDs), permanent downloads (such as iTunes) and ringtones. Songwriters and music publishers will be paid a rate of 9.1 cents for digital downloads and physical products. For the first time a rate of 24 cents was established for ringtones.
The CRB adopted the rates for two other types of services – interactive streaming (such as some Napster services) and limited downloads (such as Rhapsody To Go).
The Digital Media Association, the National Music Publishers’ Association, and the Recording Industry Association of America, together with the Nashville Songwriters Association International and the Songwriters Guild of America agreed on rates for interactive streaming and limited downloads on September 23, 2008 and this agreement was adopted by the CRB.
One hundred eighty days after the rates take effect for streaming and limited downloads, the services providing the downloads and streams, must start reporting and paying the agreed to royalty to music publishers.
Orphan Works Legislation, S. 2913: On September 26th, the Senate passed S. 2913, the "Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008." However, unlike the IP enforcement bill, S. 2913 did not receive favorable consideration by the House as the House Orphan Works bill in considerably different from the Senate bill.