In case you missed it, the opening shots across the bow were fired this week, when the Digital Media Association (DiMA) filed a brief in a royalty-rate setting proceeding arguing that an interactive stream should not require a license to reproduce a composition (that is, a digital phonorecord delivery, or DPD, license under Section 115 of the Copyright Act.) In layman’s terms, that means that the Digital Medial Association, the representatives for companies like MusicNet, which supplies music to Microsoft, Yahoo, MTV and many others, is trying to get out of having to pay a royalty to songwriters and publishers for reproducing their music in the digital, online sphere—something they had essentially agreed to do as far back as 2001. In short, DiMA is looking for the Federal courts to give them an escape hatch from a commitment they made to the music community more than five years ago.
MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment