Internet subcommittee of Congress to hear testimony on CARP reform bill

Congressman Lamar Smith has introduced the Copyright Royalty and Distribution Reform Act (H.R. 1417).  In a nutshell, the Act would replace the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (the body that set royalty rates for webcasters, large and small, based on the rate that Yahoo! was willing to pay RIAA) with an administrative law judge.  More importantly, the Copyright Judge and his staff attorneys would be paid by the government, not by those who seek to participate in the rate-setting process, as they are now.  Entities seeking to participate would pay a reasonable filing fee, instead of the arbitrators' heftly hourly legal fees.  
The Subcommittee on Courts, The Internet and Intellectual Property will hold a hearing on the proposed legislation on Tuesday, April 1 at 2PM Eastern Time, and it is supposed to be webcast live.  
Watch for more news on this legislation.