July 18, 2003- The RIAA and friends filed a motion to strike, from the webcasters' appeal briefs filed June 20, all references to any documents and sources not in the record created in the CARP proceedings below.
Motion to Strike
So what are the moving parties complaining about?
Well, first, they really hate some statements of Mark Cuban, one of the pioneers of Internet radio and founder of Broadcast.com. Cuban sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo!, which took over negotiations with RIAA for webcasting licenses. The Copyright Arbitration panel then used the Yahoo! Agreement as the basis for webcasting rates for the entire webcasting field. When Cuban heard that, he sent this email to the Radio and Internet Newsletter explaining his strategy when he was negotiating with the RIAA for Broadcast.com before Yahoo acquired it.
Second, they hate some testimony of Yahoo!'s own David Mandelbrot to Congress's Committee on the Judiciary, complaining that the CARP and the Librarian made a big mistake in using the Yahoo!/RIAA deal as a basis for the royalty rates for the whole industry.
Third, they object to webcasters citing the public testimony of MaryBeth Peters, the Register of Copyrights, explaining how the CARP system is a disaster and should be reformed, because, among other things, the cost prevents some interested parties from participating. It isn't every day you see a Department of Justice lawyer signing a brief that says briefs shouldn't cite to the Copyright Office's own website.
They even object to the inclusion of the URLs for the webcasters' own Internet radio websites. They ask the Court to order webcasters to file new, redacted briefs that don't include any sources not in the record before the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel.