CRB Seeks to Correct Eligibility for Streaming Reporting Requirements Relief

The Copyright Royalty Board sought comment Wednesday on an additional technical amendment to rules on how noncommercial broadcasters must report streamed sound recordings to SoundExchange for royalty purposes. The amendment is aimed at reinstating rules that ease the reporting requirements for both noncommercial broadcasters and commercial broadcasters when either pays no more than the $500 minimum annual royalty, the CRB said in a notice in the Federal Register. The reporting requirements relief requires “minimum fee” entities to only report two weeks of sound-recording figures per quarter and to report a playlist of sound recordings streamed during a specific period and the aggregate tuning hours for that period. An amendment to the rules that the CRB released in June, was aimed at expanding the reporting relief to noncommercial educational webcasters, appeared to inadvertently exclude noncommercial broadcasters from its definition of entities eligible for reporting relief, the CRB said. Comments on the amendment are due Sept. 9, the CRB said. “We’re not expecting any fierce or widespread opposition to the [CRB’s] proposed amendment, which would restore the prior status quo for noncommercial broadcasters,” said copyright and music licensing lawyer Karyn Ablin of Fletcher Heald in a blog post Wednesday. Ablin represented NAB and the National Religious Broadcasters Noncommercial Music License Committee in the CRB proceeding. “It’s hard to argue that noncommercial broadcasters should be treated more harshly under the reporting rules than commercial broadcasters," Ablin said. "In fact, both types of radio broadcasters face unique reporting challenges that merit special consideration because broadcasters’ main business is over-the-air radio, not streaming, and their systems were designed with over-the-air radio, not streaming, in mind.”