EFF is pleased to report that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recently dropped its request to the U.S. Copyright Office that webcasters be required to submit detailed records of user information.Ê
Last week, EFF released a joint comment to the Copyright Office, along with The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the California community broadcaster KPFA, and the Fresno Free College Foundation, operator of KFCF 88.5, opposing the proposed recordkeeping requirements.
We feel that this is a good start, but as EFF senior IP attorney Fred von Lohmann said to the Recorder, "It's nice to say 'sorry, we didn't mean it,' but because of their proposal, it's in the Copyright Office's proposed regulation."
The Copyright Office is taking public comments on this issue until April 26th.
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged the U.S. Copyright Office on Friday to modify proposed webcasting regulations to preserve listener privacy.
In an unprecedented invasion of listener privacy, the Copyright Office has proposed that webcasters be required to gather and report to copyright owners information about individual listeners, including their country of origin, local time zone, and a unique user identifier.
"The Copyright Office's policy will drive smaller webcasters off the Internet by enforcing the expense of tracking 25 pieces of information for every song they broadcast," said EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney Fred von Lohmann. "The same policy establishes an unprecedented violation of listener privacy by tracking and providing to copyright holders a 'unique user identifier' for each listener."
The Copyright Office rulemaking addresses the kinds of records webcasters must hand over to copyright owners as part of their royalty obligations under the DMCA. While a great deal of attention has been paid to the royalty rates being proposed by the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP), little attention has been devoted to the recordkeeping requirements proposed by the Copyright Office.
For example, KFCF, a small community broadcaster in Fresno, estimates that gathering and reporting all the information required by the proposed regulations would require the hiring of an additional staffer, at a cost of at least $10-15,000. This despite the fact that KFCF's total royalty obligation to record labels would only be $500 annually.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the California community broadcaster KPFA, and the Fresno Free College Foundation, operator of KFCF 88.5, joined EFF in opposing the proposed recordkeeping requirements.
The U.S. Copyright Office deadline for filing comments is April 26.
EFF, EPIC, KPFA, and Fresno Free College Foundation comments
to U.S. Copyright Office:
U.S. Copyright Office proposed recordkeeping regulations and
comments of interested parties:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties
organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in
1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to
support free expression, privacy, and openness in the information
society. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the
most linked-to websites in the world:
http://www.eff.org/
EPIC is a nonprofit public interest research center in
Washington, D.C. It was established in 1994 to focus public
attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect
privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values.
The organization's website is at:
http://www.epic.org/
Founded in 1949, KPFA was the first community-supported
radio station in the United States. KPFA is listener funded
and does not accept corporate sponsorships. KPFA was the
original station of the Pacifica Foundation which owns four
other stations located in New York, Washington D.C., Los
Angeles, and Houston. KPFA's signal reaches one third of
California and the station's website is at:
http://www.kpfa.org/
KFCF (88.1 FM) began broadcasting on June 9, 1975, and, at
that time, was the only public electronic medium serving
the Fresno, California area. The station broadcasts 24
hours a day with 50,000 watts of equivalent effective power
from a transmitter site 30 miles northeast of Fresno in the
Sierra Nevada. KFCF's parent organization, Fresno Free
College Foundation, was founded in 1968 and is a nonprofit,
community-based membership organization dedicated to the
principles that the well-being of the community is measured
by the respect that it shows for the civil liberties,
intellectual and artistic freedom of its citizens, and that
the exercise of this freedom enriches the individual and
society as a whole. Information about the foundation is
available on the radio station's website at:
http://www.kfcf.org/
Fred von Lohmann, EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney
fred@eff.org
+1 415-436-9333 x123