The Copyright Office on Tuesday sought meetings with stakeholders in advance of a planned legislative recommendation on potential revisions to Copyright Act Section 108 to update to account for the digital age the statute's conditional exemption allowing libraries and archives to reproduce and distribute copyrighted works, including musical works and motion pictures. The CO has been exploring potential updates to Section 108 since 2005 and a Library of Congress representative was one of several who urged the House IP Subcommittee in 2014 to revamp Section 108 (see report in the April 3, 2014, issue). The CO said in a notice in the Federal Register it's seeking to hold the meetings in Washington from later this month into July. The CO is exploring “several remaining issues,” including whether to recommend the Section 108 exemption include public performances and displays, provisions concerning copies for users, security measures, public access and third-party outsourcing, the office said. Stakeholders must schedule meetings by July 7, the CO said.

The Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS) and independent musician George Johnson separately confirmed to us Wednesday that they petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to review the Copyright Royalty Board's 2016-20 noninteractive webcasting rate-setting ruling. SoundExchange also filed an appeal of the CRB’s ruling, which several music industry lawyers said faces difficult odds at the D.C. Circuit (see 1606010065). CRB published a final version of its 2016-2020 noninteractive webcasting royalty rates in early May, setting the rates at 0.17 cent per performance on nonsubscription services and 0.22 cent per performance on subscription services (see 1605020058). IBS disputed the current Web IV ruling saying it's “in excess of Constitutional and statutory authority, is in violation of the public's Constitutional and statutory rights and interests, is in violation of the Copyright Act, as amended, is not supported by the record, is arbitrary and capricious, and deprives petitioner of due process.” Johnson said he's seeking a D.C. Circuit review on a pro se, on one's own behalf, basis. Neither the IBS nor Johnson petitions had been entered into the Pacer database and hadn’t received case numbers at our deadline.

A jury in U.S. District Court in San Francisco found in favor of Google Thursday in the second trial related to Oracle’s software copyright infringement lawsuit against the company. The jury said Google’s use of the coding and names contained in Oracle’s Java application programming interface (API) technology in its Android mobile operating system qualifies under the fair use doctrine. Google faced up to $9.3 billion in Oracle-proposed damages. The U.S. tech industry was closely watching the second Oracle v. Google trial, given its major implications for the scope of fair use and the financial implications for the U.S. software market (see 1605090048). The jury’s verdict is "a win for the Android ecosystem, for the Java programming community, and for software developers who rely on open and free programming languages to build innovative consumer products,” Google said in a statement. Oracle plans to appeal the jury’s verdict because the company believes “Google developed Android by illegally copying core Java technology to rush into the mobile device market,” Oracle General Counsel Dorian Daley said in a statement. “Oracle brought this lawsuit to put a stop to Google’s illegal behavior.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit remanded the fair use question in Oracle v. Google to the San Francisco district court in 2014, also saying Oracle’s APIs are copyrightable (see 1405120040). The Supreme Court declined last year to grant Google’s petition for a writ of certiorari on the Federal Circuit’s API copyright ruling (see 1506290062).

The Copyright Office sought comment Wednesday on an NPRM that would significantly reduce the fee for online service providers to designate agents to receive notifications of claimed infringement under Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 512. The CO is seeking to lower the fee to $6 per designation in anticipation of a switch from using paper forms to designate those agents to an online filing system. The designation fee framework currently includes an initial $105 fee and an additional $35 fee for each of up to 10 alternate designated agents. “The office does not believe that an additional fee to include alternate names with a designation to be warranted, as the office does not currently foresee appreciable additional costs” via the online process, the CO said in a notice in the Federal Register. “This significantly lower proposed fee reflects the far greater efficiency” of the CO's online filing system. The CO said it anticipates it will receive about 7,000 designation filings each year at an estimated annual processing cost of about $41,000. Comments on the fee proposal are due June 24.

American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) executives and members lobbied on Capitol Hill Wednesday for a revamp of music licensing laws, particularly those that affect its 1941 consent decree with the DOJ. Justice is reviewing both its ASCAP and Broadcast Music, Inc., consent decrees. ASCAP and DOJ also recently reached a proposed settlement that would end the department's investigation into whether ASCAP violated its consent decree by signing 150 exclusive contract (see 1605120049). ASCAP believes the U.S. District Court in New York will rule by mid-June on the proposed settlement, which “makes us more optimistic that the DOJ will be able to focus on our specific request” for an update to the PRO's consent decree, said CEO Elizabeth Matthews in an interview. “They wanted to get these issues out of the way first.” The rules that ASCAP operates under “are terribly outdated and we're working with [DOJ] to get them updated,” ASCAP President Paul Williams told us. “What we want from the Hill is for them to understand that the way the consent decree is scripted is absolutely broken.” ASCAP is processing “a huge amount” of royalty requests but “the value of music has come down,” Williams said. “It needs to come back up, and one of the ways we want to do that” is to seek a revamp of rules for the Copyright Royalty Board, which ASCAP and other performing rights organizations use to settle licensing disputes, via the Songwriter Equity Act (HR-1283/S-662). The bill would amend Sections 114 and 115 of the Copyright Act to allow the CRB to consider “all relevant evidence” when determining royalty rates and would change the rate standard for mechanical royalties. BMI, NMPA, Recording Academy and several conservative groups have strongly backed HR-1283/S-662 since Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and House IP Subcommittee Vice Chairman Doug Collins, R-Ga., reintroduced the bill last year.

The Copyright Office said it's seeking comment on whether to extend its existing requirement that online-only publications must deposit their works with the CO to also include online-only books and sound recordings. The CO adopted an interim rule in 2010 that enacted the mandatory deposit requirement for online-only publications, which it viewed as a limited exception to the office's exemption of online-only works from mandatory deposit requirements. The CO said in a Tuesday Federal Register notice that it issued a notice of inquiry on its proposal because the interim rule was intended to “inform a more permanent solution and rule.” The CO is seeking feedback on experiences with mandatory deposits of online-online publications and comments on the proposed extension of the deposit requirement to online-only books and sound recordings. The comments will help the CO decide how to focus requests for further written comments and potential stakeholder meetings, the CO said.

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) sought comment Tuesday on its plan to approve a settlement by the three top performing rights organizations and The Harry Fox Agency on distribution of 2012 and 2013 Digital Audio Recording Technology (DART) Musical Works Fund royalties. Harry Fox and the PROs -- the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) and the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC) -- jointly seek distribution of 95 percent of the 2012 and 2013 DART Musical Works Fund royalties, the CRB said in a Federal Register notice. The PROs and Harry Fox didn't say how they will allocate the royalties among themselves. The CRB is seeking comment from “interested claimants” on “whether any reasonable objection exists that would preclude” distribution of 95 percent of the funds to the PROs and Harry Fox. Claimants must submit comments to the CRB by June 16.​

MPAA and United Arab Emirates-based domain name registry Radix reached agreement to make the association a “trusted notifier” to refer “large-scale” websites engaged in copyright infringement that use Radix-operated domain extensions. MPAA reached a similar agreement with domain name registry Donuts (see 1602090029). The Radix agreement includes “strict standards” for referral, including evidence of “clear and pervasive” infringement and evidence that MPAA attempted to contact the registrar and hosting provider to resolve the situation before notifying Radix, the association said Friday. Radix will work with registry partners to contact an infringing website’s operator and the registry will use its existing authority to suspend the website if the registry finds further evidence of infringement, MPAA said. “Our aim is to evolve our domain extensions to a point where internet users feel a greater sense of security when they see a URL that ends with them,” Radix Business Head Sandeep Ramchandani said in an MPAA news release. “While this agreement is geared to film and television piracy, similar agreements could address other illegal activity online,” MPAA Global General Counsel Steven Fabrizio said in the news release. “Hopefully, it can become a model to be used with other players in the domain name ecosystem and internet intermediaries.”

The Digital Media Association said DOJ’s proposed settlement with the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers to end the department’s investigation into whether ASCAP was violating its 1941 consent decree by signing about 150 exclusive contracts shows why DOJ shouldn’t relax its consent decrees with ASCAP or Broadcast Music Inc. DOJ is reviewing its consent decrees with both performing rights organizations (PROs). DOJ’s Thursday settlement with ASCAP requires the PRO to pay a $1.75 million fine and to refrain from signing any further exclusive contracts with songwriters and music publishers (see 1605120049). Though there has been “an extensive lobbying campaign designed to convince department officials to relax the current set of rules governing the collective licensing of music performance rights, today’s announcement is strong evidence that the existing consent decrees, if anything, should be strengthened -- and certainly not weakened,” DiMA said in a Thursday statement. “With these issues resolved, we continue our focus on leading the way towards a more efficient, effective and transparent music licensing system and advocating for key reforms to the laws that govern music creator compensation.”

Regardless of the outcome of the second trial in Oracle v. Google, “that it proceeded to this stage at all casts a long legal shadow over the entire world of software development,” said Electronic Frontier Foundation Director-Copyright Activism Parker Higgins in a blog post. Google and Oracle began a new trial Monday in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Oracle’s software copyright infringement lawsuit against Google. The new trial will focus on Google’s claim that its copying of the coding and names contained in Oracle’s Java application programming interface (API) technology for use in its Android mobile operating system doesn’t constitute copyright infringement under the fair use doctrine (see 1605090048). A Google win in the new trial would maintain the status quo view that copying APIs qualifies as a fair use, “and even if API labels are subject to copyright restrictions, those restrictions are not absolute,” Higgins said Wednesday. But “there is a real cost to defending fair use” and “the overwhelming majority of developers in the computer industry” don’t have financial resources like Google and Oracle to maintain an extended fair use legal battle, he said. “Beyond all those known costs, wedging a layer of copyright permissions culture into API compatibility comes with serious unknowable costs, too,” Higgins said. “How many developers will abandon ideas for competitive software because the legal risks are too great?”