Congress To Address Digital Music

camusflage writes: "MSNBC has an article that says Representatives Rick Boucher and Chris Cannon are set to introduce legislation that will attempt to control how copyright law treats digital music, and how royalties for it are paid. Among the things the legislation is said to address is what constitutes archival and incidental copying, in-store samples, and 'extending the mechanical compulsory license to Internet file-swapping.' The article goes on to say that the RIAA previously indicated openness to the licensing, while publishers and songwriters oppose it." See also ZDNet or Reuters (this link is the best summary of the bill). And if you've got the stomach to wade through copyright law, read the bill itself. Keep in mind that introducing a bill is a long long way from making any changes in the law, and even this bill doesn't necessarily solve all of the current problems with copyright law.

Comments

Braindead...

[Saeger]

Under the bill, if a record company made its music available for download only through a service that it wholly owned -- for example, if AOL Time Warner's Warner Music label sold songs over AOL -- it would not be required to license songs to anyone else. But if a label entered a joint venture or partnership deal and licensed its music to that affiliated service, all unaffiliated services would have the right to license the same music under similar terms and conditions.

So that means if Spicoli has a pizza delivered to his classroom, he can either eat it all by himself, or, if he shares it with just one other person, the teacher will make him give everyone a slice? Tough choice.

...Napster would prefer an even stronger proposal to create a compulsory license that would force record labels to let any company sell any song at a price determined by the U.S. Copyright Office.

Smart. Real smart.

When?

[Guppy06]

Is this before or after music trading is discussed before the House Un-American Activities Committee?