{"id":3019,"date":"2005-06-22T01:51:33","date_gmt":"2005-06-22T05:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/2005\/06\/22\/register-of-copyright-proposes-revis"},"modified":"2005-06-22T01:51:33","modified_gmt":"2005-06-22T05:51:33","slug":"register-of-copyright-proposes-revision-to-section-115-compulsory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/2005\/06\/22\/register-of-copyright-proposes-revision-to-section-115-compulsory\/","title":{"rendered":"Register of Copyright Proposes Revision to Section 115 Compulsory"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Check out Marybeth Peters’ testimony<\/a>
\nbefore the House Subcommitte on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual
\nProperty.  It includes a draft bill, dubbed the “21st Century
\nMusic Licensing Reform Act,” which would repeal the mechanical compulsory license<\/a> and alter the roles, rights, and obligations of rights collectives.<\/p>\n

As you may recall, several<\/a> hearings <\/a>have been held on section 115 in the past.  INDUCE Act blog<\/a>, Joe Gratz<\/a>, and Cathy Kirkman<\/a>
\nalready have posted some thoughts on the Register’s proposal.  I’d
\nlike to say more later, but I haven’t looked at the proposal deeply
\nenough to comment on its merits.  For now, I just want to point
\nout the nuance
\nhere in thinking about what it means to let the free market work.<\/p>\n

Peters wants to dispose of the compulsory license for numerous reasons,
\nbut particularly because free market negotations would be
\npreferable.  But she doesn’t view the free market in a wholly simplistic
\nway, in which efficient outcomes would be reached if only we granted
\nbroad entitlements and got out of rights holders’ way. Rather, in her
\nproposal,
\nshe recognizes that carefully structuring and allocating rights can be
\ncrucial to achieving efficiency.<\/p>\n

The proposal is aimed at engineering the market to reach a particular outcome.  Its explicit purpose is
\n“to foster a consolidated licensing structure,” in which music rights
\norganizations (MROs) would act as a “one-stop shop” for performance,
\nreproduction, and distribution licenses.  The PROs, which offer
\nlicenses on a  “blanket basis for those who wish to have the
\nfreedom to perform any work within a performing rights organization’s
\nrepertoire,” should act as a model for licensing of
\nreproduction and distribution rights.  Unlike under the current compulsory license, rights holders would be free to
\nlicense their works however they choose and “[n]othing obligates a
\ncopyright owner to utilize a MRO”; however, the law would be designed
\nsuch that “the increased efficiency of [the MRO] structure provides an
\nincentive for them to do so, just as they have all utilized performing
\nrights organizations.”  <\/p>\n

To that end, the proposal
\n“provides that when a music rights organization has been lawfully
\nauthorized to license the public performance right in a nondramatic
\nmusical work, that music rights organization is also authorized to
\nlicense the reproduction and the distribution of phonorecords of such
\nwork, including by digital audio transmissions.” Furthermore, to remedy
\nconflicts regarding who should get paid for streaming, it “obligates a
\nmusic rights organization to offer, as part of its license to perform
\npublicly a nondramatic musical work by means of a digital audio
\ntransmission, a non-exclusive right to reproduce phonorecords of the
\nmusical work and to distribute phonorecords of that work by means of a
\ndigital audio transmission, to the extent that such reproduction and\/or
\ndistribution facilitates the public performance.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Check out Marybeth Peters’ testimony before the House Subcommitte on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property.  It includes a draft bill, dubbed the “21st Century Music Licensing Reform Act,” which would repeal the mechanical compulsory license and alter the roles, rights, and obligations of rights collectives. As you may recall, several hearings have been held […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}