EU Public Affairs Monitor - 24/09/08

The PRO-IP Act: A game-changing law and its implications
"September 2008. In the waning weeks of what was a long and arduous presidential election campaign, people seemed so intensely focused on the campaign itself, they had probably forgotten George W. Bush would still be President the day after the election. And while the nation’s attention on the weekend of September 26 was focused on a bailout to fix the exploding economic crisis, most failed to notice that Congress passed a law whose impact remains at best unseen for musicians and the music industry. The Prioritizing Resources and Organization of Intellectual Property Act of 2007, also known as the PRO-IP Act, was passed with unanimous consent in the Senate and with an overwhelming majority in the House (renegade Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul was one of the few who voted against it, as well as the original draft of the Act in May).

The law itself is not much of a change from previous acts of similar nature (raising fines and punishments against people caught with pirated music and such), except for one major point: The law creates a new office in the White House whose purpose is dedicated to copyright infringement matters and whose head official would dictate copyright policy. This so-called “IP czar,” a term used by both the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the digital rights’ advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, would direct the Department of Justice and Attorne2y General as to how to handle piracy cases and the increased rate of piracy through P2P sharing." [TinyMixTapes]

Internet Radio is (almost) saved? Sep 24th 2008
"Remember how last year there was a big to do about the future of internet radio? The US Copyright Royalty Board imposed new, higher fees for online broadcasters, and web radio services like Pandora and Last.fm complained that the new fees would effectively put them out of business. A bill was introduced in Congress to work things out, but that never really went anywhere. But now, a year and a half later, the Digital Media Association, which represents a number of online music distributors, announced an agreement with copyright holders. It just doesn't exactly cover internet radio.

Here's the deal. If you're a company that provides limited music downloads or interactive streaming audio, you have to pay 10.5% of your revenue in royalties, less any amount owed for performance royalties. That covers subscription based services like Rhapsody which let you download music to your PC, so long as the music becomes useless when you stop paying up. It also covers interactive sites like Last.fm which let you select the songs you want to play." [DownloadSquad]

Agreement Reached on Internet Royalties September 23, 2008
"The contentious issue of digital royalty rates has reached a tentative conclusion, at least as far as putting agreements on paper is concerned. In an announcement made today, the warring parties entered what is termed a "historic" agreement. Whether this new agreement will challenge the Magna Carta in 800 years remains to be seen. However, in the meantime it appears the feud has been settled for interactive music services and limited download services, but the Internet radio debate remains unresolved.

Whenever an Internet radio station plays a song, it has to pay a royalty. That royalty rate remained firm at $0.000768 from 1995 until all hell broke loose in 2007. In early 2007, the US Copyright Royalty Board (a bizarre sect of the Legislative branch) increased the rates substantially. And not by a few hundred thousandths of a dollar - we're talking somewhere on the order of 300%-1200%, enough to make Internet broadcast giants such as Pandora contemplate ceasing operations. Oh, and for added kicks the rate would be retroactive to January 2006." [Slyck]