Administration white paper urges creation of performance right for broadcast of sound recordings
Last June, the White House officer charged with protecting “the ideas and creativity of the American public” – that would be the U.S Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator – issued a Strategic Plan on the enforcement of Intellectual Property. Prepared in coordination with a wide range of Federal agencies, the Strategic Plan examined existing laws to identify (among other things) “deficiencies that could hinder enforcement” of intellectual property (IP) rights. Following up on that initial effort, the White House has now issued the Administration’s White Paper on Intellectual Property Enforcement Legislative Recommendations (White Paper), in which it offers suggestions for legislation to beef up IP enforcement.
Much of the 20-page report – which addresses such esoteric as corporate espionage, drug counterfeiting and criminal sentencing standards – is probably of limited direct interest to our readers. But two items in the White Paper do warrant attention here.
First, the White Paper urges Congress to “clarify that infringement by streaming . . . is a felony in appropriate circumstances.” (We can hear it now – “Book ‘em, Dan-O. Streaming in the first degree”.) The brief discussion accompanying this recommendation isn’t entirely clear, but the appearance of the word “streaming” got our attention.
At first glance, one could take “streaming” here to mean “webcasting” in the broadest sense. In that case it would be a good idea to heed our frequent admonitions about jumping through all of SoundExchange’s various hoops. But our gut instinct is that this isn’t the “streaming” that the Administration is worried about. Rather, the White Paper refers to “the illegal streaming of content” – so we’re guessing that its real target is something along the lines of the illegal file sharing we’ve discussed in the past, or maybe the live streaming of broadcast content – often sporting events – by some users of services like UStream.com or Justin.Tv. That more limited interpretation makes more sense in terms of the actual economic damage involved. But given the plain language meaning of “streaming”, we can’t rule out the possibility that the Administration may indeed want to criminalize any unauthorized streaming of music. Such a get-tough approach would arguably be consistent with the Administration’s recommendation (described below) concerning performance rights.
The second item of interest appears in the very last section of the White Paper, which recommends that “Congress create a right of public performance for sound recordings transmitted by over-the-air broadcast stations." That’s right – the White House is now on record as officially endorsing the Performance Rights Act (PRA). According to the White Paper, the fact that the U.S. has no performance right for recordings “disadvantages” U.S. copyright owners overseas, since “[t]hey are not permitted to collect overseas royalties because they are not granted rights in the U.S.” The White Paper contains no extensive discussion (much less specific support) for this assertion. Indeed, the entire section on this point is a total of five sentences long.
We don’t know how much effect this endorsement will have. The PRA has yet to be reintroduced in either the Senate or the House in the 112th Congress, and the last time it was introduced (in the 111th) it clearly didn’t have the votes to pass. But, as endorsements go, this is a pretty big one. If nothing else, it might lead to the introduction of a bill, thus starting the legislative process yet again. Or it could resurrect the currently dormant discussions between the NAB and the RIAA regarding an accord on this issue. (The success of any legislation will likely depend on those two parties reaching an agreement that both can live with.) But the White House could play a role here, especially if it follows up on the White Paper by using its “bully pulpit” to bring the parties to the negotiating table. Let’s just say the gauntlet has been thrown down and we think the PRA can fairly be described as “in play” at this point.
Of course, despite the fact that these recommendations come from the White House, they are nothing more than recommendations. It is up to Congress to act on them or not, as it sees fit. And it remains to be seen whether Congress will do so. We’ll just say that, if it does, we hope that Congress will consider all points of view and move cautiously, with clarity and precision, to ensure that legitimate rights, including First Amendment rights, are not infringed.
