Sometimes, you just can’t win.
A proposal to speed up the clearance of mechanical copyright for broadcasters and digital media services has been met with hysteria from lobby groups who complain that copyright clearance today is too cumbersome and slow.
It’s an issue that’s been intensely discussed since it was first proposed two years ago by the US Copyright Office’s Register of Copyrights, Marybeth Peters. The changes, designed to help download services such as Apple’s iTunes as well as digital broadcasters, propose a blanket license for mechanical copyright clearance.
As we know, the distinction between ‘streaming radio’ and ‘discrete physical copy’ has become so blurred as to be almost meaningless, so reform is overdue. And today, getting a song in digital format from the record company vaults to your PC involves a lengthy bureaucratic process full of uncertainties. As the Register (that’s her, not us) describes it, this minefield is “a highly complex architecture supported in part by relationships, split rights, side agreements and historical antiquities.”
The Copyright Office’s answer scythes through this mess in time honored fashion by proposing a compulsory, or statutory license – an elegant and time proven mechanism first introduced in the United States for the player piano in 1909. In place of the historical cruft is a simple blanket license, with digital copies considered zero rated. It was published two weeks ago as an amendment to Section 115 of the Copyright Act (SIRA) and makes its way for a vote this week.
So far so good? No, wait.
The EFF has swung into action, with hysterical campaigners calling it “the worst bill you’ve never heard of”. Congressmen tonight were being deluged with faxes and emails from angry nerds.
