Copyright Office Compulsory License Report Seen Wide Ranging
A closely watched Copyright Office report on compulsory licensing will take a wide-ranging and lengthy look at rules allowing cable- and satellite-TV providers to get rights to distribute programs without negotiating with individual rights holders, said participants in the proceeding. Industry officials who lobbied the office in advance of the report agree it will be comprehensive, with a page count said to be around several hundred. It’s unclear whether the report will recommend any sweeping changes to compulsory licensing, as some content providers sought, they said. All expect an in-depth look at new technologies (CD Oct 12 p5), as they said the office signaled it would do in an April 2007 notice of inquiry kicking off the review.
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The report likely will have a section on the Web, video streaming and other technologies not addressed in sections 111, 119, and 122 of the Copyright Act, said communications attorneys. The report is expected to address issues brought up at the office’s hearings in October and in filings last summer, in which industry raised questions about a number of new technologies, said a lawyer. Disney, professional sports leagues, the Motion Picture Association of America and a group whose members said they license music from nearly every published songwriter have said the office shouldn’t recommend that lawmakers apply to Web sites the Act’s compulsory license provisions that let cable and satellite operators carry those signals without contracts with each copyright owner. The statutory license report to Congress is due Monday, said the office’s Web site. Cable operators paid $144.4 million last year to the office to be given to rights holders.
Unclear is whether the office will recommend scaling back compulsory licenses, as sought by the MPAA and others, said participants in the proceeding. Registrar of Copyrights Marybeth Peters has said she personally favors letting rights holders and distributors strike more deals, which would involve scaling back the statutory license, but she won’t let that stance influence her recommendation to Congress, they said. One lawyer said Peters has modified her views on statutory licenses in recent days, now agreeing with some in the industry that such licenses are needed because broadcasters don’t have rights to strike distribution deals for the programming they carry.
Copyright Office officials probably grappled with whether to standardize formulas for fees that cable operators and satellite operators must pay for distributing signals of out-of-market broadcasters, said industry lawyers. But it’s unclear what decision they'll end up making, the officials said. An NCTA official declined to comment, as did a Copyright Office official.
Congress doesn’t have to follow the office’s recommendations, and hasn’t always done so, said the officials, but lawmakers will closely examine the report. It’s expected to “address the application of the compulsory license to cable, satellite and new technologies for video delivery,” said attorney Wade Hargrove, a participant in the proceeding. “The Copyright Office is taking a comprehensive look at the compulsory copyright license… This report will set the table for debate in the next Congress on these issues.”