Wednesday, August 1, 2001

Arbitration Meeting Ponders Royalties for Webcasting Copyrighted Material By DAN CARNEVALE Washington A representative of public radio said that college stations' educational mission should be taken into consideration as arbitrators try to decide how much radio stations and others must pay copyright holders for the right to stream copyrighted material over the Internet. The U.S. Copyright Office opened arbitration meetings here Monday to hear testimony on what rates should be charged for music and other recorded material that is digitally streamed over the Web. Denise Leary, deputy general counsel for programming at National Public Radio, was representing 470 public radio stations -- two-thirds of them run by colleges and universities -- at the meeting, which continued Tuesday. Traditionally, radio stations have paid for licenses that allow them to broadcast popular music and other copyrighted works. The licenses, which have been broadened in recent years to cover material that is streamed over the Internet, are worked out on a station-by-station basis with trade associations that represent composers and authors. The music industry and others, however, want the rates charged for streaming copyrighted material to be fixed by the Copyright Office, which is part of the Library of Congress. The growth of the World Wide Web has prompted many radio stations to stream their broadcasts, and has also spawned private Webcast companies that operate online-only equivalents of radio stations. Recently many radio stations and Web sites that stream music have stopped doing so because of uncertainty over the future of licensing agreements. Music-industry representatives say that streaming music online is fundamentally different from broadcasting it over the airwaves, and that a new royalty structure should acknowledge this. "If you turn on your radio, a conventional radio, you'll probably get about three or four, or as much as 20 or 30, stations -- depending on where you are," said Bob Garrett, a lawyer representing the Recording Industry of America. "If you turn on your computer and log on the Internet, you can get literally thousands of radio stations, and it doesn't matter where you are." Artists and producers risk their own money to create music and other content, Mr. Garrett said. If others are creating Web sites that make money off of this content, he said, the copyright owners should be paid royalties. "These channels don't appear on the Web sites by magic," Mr. Garrett said. "There are entrepreneurs who put them on there." But Ms. Leary said public stations should pay less than commercial Webcasters when streaming radio broadcasts on the Internet, because the educational content provides a public service that would not be economically viable as a business. Many college stations play classical music and jazz, while providing educational background on the music's origin and meaning. "Their educational mission is clear," Ms. Leary said. "This is generally unavailable on any other radio station." And unlike commercial radio stations and private Webcasters, many public-radio stations don't have many online listeners. "The number of Web listeners we have is extremely small compared to our broadcast listeners," Ms. Leary said. The arbitration period, overseen by the Copyright Arbitration and Royalty Panels, could last as late as January 28. Until that time, the panel will seek more testimony and information from interested parties through a series of meetings. At the end of the arbitration period, the panel will make a recommendation to the register of copyrights, Marybeth Peters. If she accepts the recommendations, she has 60 days to make a report to James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress. If she disagrees, she will have 90 days to make a new recommendation. Mr. Billington will then be in charge of setting the rates. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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