SiriusXM asked to pay 16 cents per public performance license for statutory licenses for webcasting fees to be set by the Copyright Royalty Board for Jan. 1, 2016 to Dec. 31, 2020, in filings made public Friday (http://1.usa.gov/1wQILjh). The filings were due Oct. 7 (http://1.usa.gov/11FkBPc) (see 1410090034). Webcaster iHeartMedia asked to pay $0.0005 for such licenses.
Google is planning to roll out updated search technology to make infringing sites appear lower in its search results, said a company report released Friday (http://bit.ly/ZycKl2). “Google has a number of new advertising products which further promote authorized sources of content in Search results,” it said. Google said it received more than 224 million Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice and takedown requests for its search results in 2013. “I welcome Google’s announcement that it will improve its efforts to address the problem of rogue websites that are dedicated to profiting from stolen works,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement Friday (http://1.usa.gov/1voF0Do). “All businesses in the Internet ecosystem have an important role to play in minimizing illegal activity,” he said. “I have met with Google on several occasions to encourage them to be more responsive to the role search engines play in directing consumers to these rogue websites,” Leahy said. “I will be tracking the results once they are implemented,” he said.
SESAC reached a $58.5 million settlement with the Television Music License Committee (TMLC) over a class-action antitrust suit on music performing rights, TMLC said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1zb884N). In the suit, TMLC accused SESAC of “overcharging local television stations since 2008,” the release said. The settlement was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, and the case had been set for trial in March, the release said. SESAC will pay the $58.5 million into a fund that will reimburse stations for excess SESAC fees gong back to 2008, and will negotiate industry wide agreements with the TMLC for 20 years starting in 2016, it said. The settlement also restores a per program license option that allows stations to negotiate directly with SESAC-affiliated composers, and SESAC agreed not to “interfere with negotiations between its affiliated composer/publishers and stations,” it said.