NMPA_International_Survey_12th_Edition

NMPA INTERNATIONAL SURVEY TWELTH EDITION INTERNATIONAL YEAR IN REVIEW 2002
tent providers to offer their products
to all Internet-delivery companies
on the same “nondiscriminatory”
terms, to exempt Internet
services from paying royalties to
music publishers for ephemeral
copies and archival “back-up
copies,” and to ensure direct payment
of the 50% split of compulsory
license Webcast royalties to
recording artists.
Boucher also introduced the
Digital Media Consumers’ Rights
Act, which would modify the
DMCA to enable hardware manufacturers
to introduce multipurpose
technology as long as it is
capable of substantial non-infringing
use. The bill also stalled in
subcommittee.
Meanwhile, House Judiciary
Committee Chairman F. James
Sensenbrenner (R-WI) called for
comments from the industry and
others on approaches to dealing
with online piracy, with expectations
that his committee will hold
hearings in 2003 on the issue.
The only music-related measure
passed by Congress in 2002 lowered
the rate of the new
phonorecord digital-performance
royalty,for webcasters with revenue
of less than $1 million a year.
Music industry and Internet
trade groups are continuing negotiations
for a joint agreement on
phonorecord digital-performance
royalty rates for those webcasters
who want a statutory license rather
than choosing to negotiate directly
with labels. The old rate structure
ended Dec. 31, 2002. The rates
would apply to webcasters with a
revenue of more than $1 million,
with rates for smaller webcasters
already set through 2004.
In the meantime, despite the
continuing growing threat of piracy,
the major recording companies
have announced that,in a compromise
with computer companies,
they will not seek legislative intervention
to prevent digital piracy
through technological means. The
Recording Industry Association of
America (RIAA) and two trade
groups representing computer
makers and software companies—
the Business Software Alliance and
the Computer Systems Policy
Project—said they had agreed on
several basic principles that would
help ease tensions between their
industries, and that they plan to
convene a meeting of senior industry
executives to discuss technical
solutions to combat the illegal
copying of digital material.
As part of the agreement, the
RIAA said that under most circumstances
it would oppose legislation
that would require computers and
consumer electronics devices to be
designed to restrict unauthorized
copying of audio and video material.
For their part, the computer
groups said they would not support
legislation seeking to clarify and
bolster the rights of people to use
copyrighted material in the digital
age, which the recording industry
has opposed as unnecessary.
The Senate Commerce Committee
held hearings on January 30,
2003 to investigate the question of
whether giant radio concerns wield
too much power over the music
industry.Lobbyists at the hearing for
the National Association of
Broadcasters (NAB) and Clear
Channel Communications, which
owns over 1,200 stations and is also
the country’s largest concert promoter,
cited studies they claimed
proved that the 1996 deregulation
of radio has been beneficial to listeners
and asked the Federal
Communications Commission
(FCC) to eliminate other media
cross-ownership rules to allow radio
to better compete in the digital age.
A group of recording artists,
smaller broadcasters, concert
promoters, artists’ groups, and
musicians’ unions, however, have
alleged anti-competitive behavior
on the part of Clear Channel.
Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) reintroduced
his Competition in Radio
and Concert Industries Act in 2003,
which would prohibit anti-competitive
practices in the radio and
concert industries.
So-called “pay for play” practices,
wherein up-and-coming acts
are allegedly urged to supply
exclusive promotional concerts to
certain radio outlets, have been at
the center of the ongoing radio
controversy. The RIAA, which did
not testify at the hearing, joined
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