The Copyright Royalty Board has proposed a technical amendment to the Part 370 Notice and Recordkeeping Requirements for Statutory Licenses, which will clarify reporting responsibilities for noncommercial broadcasters who stream their programming online.
In response to a June 21 joint petition filed by the National Association of Broadcasters and the National Religious Broadcasters Noncommercial Music License Committee, the Copyright Royalty judges propose to tweak Part 370 for the second time. This section defines which entities qualify to receive certain reporting benefits, according to a CommLawBlog piece written by Karyn Ablin, who filed the petition on behalf of the NAB and the National Religious Broadcasters Noncommercial Music License Committee.
The judges added the term “Eligible Minimum Fee Webcaster” to the definition section of 37 CFR 370.4 and removed the “Minimum Fee Broadcaster,” which they deemed unnecessary because the new definition of “Eligible Minimum Fee Webcasters.”
However, the NAB and NRB objected to a previous change intended to “expand relaxed reporting requirements then available to Minimum Fee Broadcasters to certain nonprofit educational webcasters that had previously been denied those expanded relaxed reporting requirements,” according to a summary on www.regulations.gov. However, the joint petition noted that the change (removal of the term “Minimum Fee Broadcaster”) inadvertently excluded minimum fee noncommercial broadcasters.
Upon review, the judges concurred with the assertion and have attempted to remedy the problem by including minimum fee noncommercial broadcasters in the revised definition of “Eligible Minimum Fee Webcasters” in order to ensure that noncommercial minimum fee broadcasters fall under those qualifying for the relaxed reporting requirements in Part 370.
Comments on the proposed amendment are due no later than Sept. 9.
