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

Contradictions

[rkent]

Hm. Both the ZDNet and Reuters articles contradict the MSNBC one on at least one important points: MSNBC says that the RIAA is "open to the idea," but both other sources say that the RIAA "bashed" the proposal or "was sure to oppose [it]."

Personally, I can't see why they'd like it, except that it's not technically compulsory license. But the RIAA never seemed willing to settle for the "not worst" case before, they usually go whole hog. What's MSNBC smoking?

Re:Contradictions

[Sawbones]

Hm. Both the ZDNet and Reuters articles contradict the MSNBC one on at least one important points: MSNBC says that the RIAA is "open to the idea," but both other sources say that the RIAA "bashed" the proposal or "was sure to oppose [it]."

I think the idea they're open to is this:

This would mean there would be one royalty pool, eliminating the need for a Web-based service to negotiate with individual artists, labels, music publishers and songwriters.

It's hard to say why the songwriters would be opposed to it, but it's likely the RIAA was all for getting money and isn't so keen on being forced to license to everyone if they choose to license to one online service.

Not nearly far enough

[bnenning]

It looks like the proposed bill would exempt specific online music services from more odious portions of copyright law. That may be a good thing, but it does nothing to solve the fundamental problems of laws like the DMCA which allow the content industry to remove the customer's rights using technology, while criminalizing the customer's attempt to use technology to restore those rights.

It's hard to tell how the RIAA will react

[Sawbones]

The Reuters write up mentions that should the major labels choose to not license their music at all, or do an entirely in house online distribution, then no compulsory licensing is required. I doubt they're too keen on being forced to license to the Napster(s) the fought so hard against, so the question remains will it kill any of the (admittedly vaporous) online services they've been working on or simply force them to do only in house distribution. Neither sounds particularly good since I don't make a habit of knowing which house publishes my favorite music. Still it'll be interesting to see how they try and spin either decision.

Re:I understood it differently

[rgmoore]

Yes, I think that you did misunderstand. The "first sale" doctrine says that a seller may not arbitrarily remove your rights to something that you've purchased. The specific case in which it was first mentioned was for a book that claimed to prevent purchasers from re-selling it for below a set price. The Supreme Court ruled that this was not allowable; once the buyer has paid for the book it is his to do with as he pleases. (Note that this refers to the physical book itself, and not the words therein, which are protected under copyright.)

Similarly there are some rights that a seller may not require you to waive as a condition of purchasing their product. In most states, for instance, there is an implied warrant of merchantability (i.e. that selling a product is a promise that it is actually fit for sale) that legally can't be signed away. Any contract or license that purports to do so is just trying to convince users not to try suing, and that portion of the license would be ruled invalid under the law if push came to shove.

IIRC, there is an implied licence with any software that the user has the right to do with it any steps required to use it on his computer, like copying it onto his hard-drive, modifying configuration files that come with the program, etc. AFAIK, though, the right of software companies to further constrain users is a legal gray area without enough case law to make it clear what is and isn't permissible. That's what UCITA is/was about. The software companies are unsure that their licenses would actually stand up in court, so they're trying to change the law to explicitly legalize their favorite licensing terms. This suggests that the current legal status of their licenses is dubious and requires explicit validation.