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.

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 The rules that ASCAP operates under “are terribly outdated and we're working with [DOJ] to get them updated,” ASCAP President Paul Williams told us.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 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?”

Opponents of the Fair Play Fair Pay Act (HR-1733) “have chosen to stand by hometown radio stations against the giant recording labels,” NAB said Thursday in a statement responding to the Alliance for Community Media, National Federation of Community Broadcasters and other independent broadcaster stakeholders’ endorsement of the bill (see 1605110059). HR-1733 would require most terrestrial radio stations to begin paying performance royalties and would require digital broadcasters to begin paying royalties for pre-1972 sound recordings. The bill includes a carve-out that would cap performance royalty payouts at a maximum of $500 per year for commercial stations with less than $1 million in annual revenue and $100 per year for college and public broadcasting stations. “We value our relationship with musicians,” NAB said. “Hometown radio stations are sustaining legacy artists and launching the careers of new artists. By contrast, many artists are suing their recording labels for royalties that they are owed. We believe radio stations are the best friend of the artists.”

The American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers reached a proposed settlement Thursday with DOJ that ends the department’s investigation into whether the performing rights organization (PRO) was violating its 1941 consent decree by signing about 150 contracts with songwriters and music publishers that made ASCAP their exclusive licensor for performances. Justice’s consent decree prohibits ASCAP from interfering with its members’ ability to directly license their songs. The department began its investigation in 2013 while ASCAP was settling its rate-setting proceeding with Pandora in the U.S. District Court in New York. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote said then that Pandora had a right to perform all compositions in ASCAP’s repertory (see report in the March 17, 2014, issue). Justice is reviewing both the ASCAP consent decree and a separate consent decree with PRO Broadcast Music Inc. Justice filed the proposed settlement Thursday in the U.S. District Court in New York City in conjunction with a petition for the district court to hold ASCAP in civil contempt for violating its consent decree. ASCAP agreed to pay a $1.75 million fine but didn’t admit any wrongdoing related to DOJ’s allegations. ASCAP promised to not sign any further exclusive contracts with its members and will reform its licensing practices so they don’t allow music publishers to oversee ASCAP licensing. The proposed settlement also requires ASCAP to improve its consent decree compliance program to minimize the likelihood it will violate the consent decree in the future, Justice said. “By blocking members’ ability to license their songs themselves, ASCAP undermined a critical protection of competition contained in the consent decree,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Renata Hesse, head of DOJ’s Antitrust Division, in a news release. “The Supreme Court said that ASCAP’s consent decree is supposed to provide music users with a ‘real choice’ in how they can access the millions of songs in ASCAP’s repertory -- through ASCAP’s blanket license or through direct negotiations with individual songwriters and publishers. Today’s settlement restores that choice and thereby promotes competition among the songwriters, the publishers and ASCAP.” The settlement “was the right thing to do for our members," said ASCAP CEO Elizabeth Matthews in a news release. "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.”

The Copyright Office’s planned May 18 and May 24 roundtables on how software-enabled products affect U.S. copyright law (see 1512150050) will include a focus on the fair use doctrine, the first sale doctrine and other exemptions to copyright protections, the CO said Monday in agendas for the two events. The May 18 roundtable in Washington, D.C., will be at the Library of Congress’ Madison Building. The May 24 roundtable in San Francisco will be at the University of California Hastings College of Law. Both roundtables also will examine the proper role of copyright law in protecting software-enabled consumer products and ownership issues associated with such products, the CO said.

The Copyright Office’s two upcoming roundtables on its study of Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 1201 will partially focus on how to improve the CO’s triennial review process for Section 1201 exemptions and on a proposal to allow presumptive renewal of previously granted exemptions, the CO said in agendas released Wednesday. One of the CO’s Section 1201 meetings will be May 19-20 at the Library of Congress’ James Madison Building in Washington. The other will be May 25 at University of California Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, the CO said. Both roundtable discussions also will examine how Section 1201 affects consumer issues and competition, along with the section’s anti-trafficking provisions.