p2pnet - rss feed: Webcasters attack new CARP bill
p2pnet.net News:- Webcaster Alliance says the latest CARP proposal appears to be "another classic case" of House Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner "abusing his power for the benefit of the Recording Industry".
Calling for an ethics investigation into Sensenbrenner’s ties to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), Webcaster Alliance president Ann Gabriel says while the association welcomes reforming the existing Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel, "What we find disturbing is the RIAA sitting on the sidelines waiting to manipulate any piece of legislation to increase protection for its monopolistic stranglehold."
Gabriel says her group can’t endorse the HR 1417 CARP reform bill as it stands and is calling on the webcasting and broadcasting industry to begin immediately contacting their senators asking them not to endorse it.
Concerns spring from a clause in the recently passed bill that expands the RIAA’s antitrust exemption from covering just the non-interactive webcast license to covering all mechanical licenses, "a leap which would allow the RIAA to reap benefits from a market currently worth about $12 million to cover a market worth approximately $12 billion," says Gabriel.
The alliance, which currently has an antitrust suit against the RIAA pending in the San Francisco Federal Courts, says HR 1417’s language is specifically designed to expand the narrow and limited antitrust exemption the RIAA currently enjoys; language that was slipped in and buried as a ‘technical amendment’ in the recently passed bill.
"In late November of 2003, the RIAA placed similar language in a bill introduced on the Senate side, the Enhancing Federal Obscenity Reporting and Copyright Enforcement Act (the EnFORCE Act), and sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch," she says.
"We were appalled that Senator Hatch would allow the RIAA to place additional language to expand their antitrust exemptions in a bill most legislators would have a hard time opposing, a bill apparently drafted to deal with the exploitation of children.
"A lot of people worked together to shine a spotlight on the RIAA’s tasteless maneuver with the EnFORCE Act so it only makes sense that they had to find another bill to hide their contrivances in."
HR 1417’s passage last week makes it the second bill in less than 18 months Chairman Sensenbrenner has helped the RIAA ‘amend,’ Gabriel says, going on:
"We are in court over the first one specifically dealing with an antitrust issue, so I just can’t believe it is a coincidence.
"We still have serious questions about the RIAA-financed $18,000 trip Chairman Sensenbrenner took to Thailand and Taiwan in January 2003 and believe there needs to be an investigation into that."
Commenting on the San Francisco court action, "The RIAA claims in our current suit they are protected from legal action under their existing exemption," says Gabriel.
"Since this initial antitrust exemption was enacted more than eight years ago, the RIAA has done nothing but stifle, legislate against, and prosecute technical innovation in an attempt to secure obscene profit margins for their members at the expense of artists, webcasters and technological advancements, all of which directly affect the consumer. The RIAA is already out of control, and now they want to expand their exemption even futher? It doesn’t make sense to us."
