RAIN contributor David Oxenford notes a piece of information important to all webcasters. the Copyright Royalty Board has extended the deadline for comment on proposed rule changes to how webcasters report the songs they’ve played, to SoundExchange, which collects and distributes royalties to labels and artists. This article was originally published in the Broadcast Law Blog.
The Copyright Royalty Board has extended the deadline for comments on proposals to change the recordkeeping obligations of webcasters and others who use music under the statutory license granted by Section 114 of the Copyright Act. Some of the proposed changes include requiring that services provide ISRC codes for all songs when filing their Reports of Use with SoundExchange.
ISRC codes are unique identifiers that are supposed to be assigned to every version of a recorded song, though many webcasters (including broadcasters who stream their over-the-air programming) have contended that these codes are not readily available in the music that they play – including in music provided by sound recording copyright owners own promotional people. The reports of use are the reports that most webcasters are required to file monthly with SoundExchange detailing all of the songs that were played in the previous month by a webcasting service.
Other issues raised in this notice of proposed rulemaking are detailed in our previous article on the proposals, here. The new deadline for comments is June 30, 2014. The new Reply deadline is August 11.