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From The Washington Post: "The Senate Judiciary
Committee next year will have its hands full balancing perennial
high-tech policy debates with oversight of new federal surveillance
and data-gathering powers. Making that balance work will depend
on whether the committee's top Republican and Democrat collaborate,
Capitol Hill watchers said.
"Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)
(pictured below) and Patrick Leahy
(D-Vt.) (pictured right) are known for their sharp ideological
disagreements, but they often agree on technology issues. Tech lobbyists
said that the trend may continue in the 108th Congress with topics
like online piracy and intellectual property law...
"Leahy next year wants to reform the process that Internet
radio stations use
to negotiate royalty rates with the recording industry, artists
and songwriters.
"After a lengthy arbitration proceeding earlier this
year, the Library of Congress said Webcasters should pay .07 cents
per song, per listener. The royalties are retroactive to 1998, when
the DMCA was passed.
"When a coalition of small and religious webcasters
complained that the retroactive royalties could drive them off the
air, Leahy joined Sen. Jesse Helms
(R-N.C.) to co-sponsor legislation that authorized the music industry's
principal royalty collector, SoundExchange,
to negotiate binding royalty contracts with small webcasters on
behalf of all artists and record labels.  The
bill, which ultimately won White House approval to become law, also
allowed noncommercial webcasters an extra six months to make their
back payments.
"Leahy said he will press the committee to address concerns
about 'the fairness and completeness' of the arbitration process,
and to ensure that smaller religious and university-based webcasters
are not excluded from future royalty rate negotiations."
Read this entire article in today's Washington Post,
or online here.
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