CIS Files Appellate Brief For Webcasters in D.C. Circuit

On June 20, CIS's Cyberlaw Clinic, with Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard, LLP, filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals in support of petitions for review of the Librarian of Congress's determination last year of royalty rates for compulsory copyright licenses that apply to webcasting.  Download file CIS represents Beethoven.com, InetProgramming Incorporated, Internet Radio Hawaii and WhereverRadio.  Brooks, Pierce represents Educational Information Corporation (WCPE FM).  
The Librarian's ruling, which set the royalties many times greater than those paid by terrestrial radio stations for use of musical works, was based on a lengthy expensive arbitration before a Copyright Royalty Arbitration Panel.  The Brief argues that smaller entities such as small Internet radio stations and nonprofit educational radio stations were denied due process under the Fifth Amendment when the Library refused to make any provision for them to participate in the arbitration without incurring a share of the arbitrators fees, which together were over one million dollars.  Stanford law student Melvin Priester contributed importantly to the due process argument.  The brief also argues that the royalties set are so high as to abrogate small entities's freedom of expression on the Internet, by making the compulsory license illusory.