Volume III

Issue : 2: January 27, 2005

• Court Dismisses Action against ISP for Suspending User Account
• File Swapping Arrest first in Hong Kong
• Spam Complainant sued for Tortuous Interference and Defamation
• U.S. Appeals Court Upholds Web casting Rates
• Ohio Court Initiates Online Posting of Videos of Court Proceedings
• Internet Tobacco Sales New York Moves to Tax Sales and Online Retailer Indicted
• Copyright Collective to seek Levy on MP3 players from Supreme Court
• Rhode Island Decides to Licence Canadian Online Pharmacies
• Canadian Government Claims U.S. Court Decision in RIM Litigation Threatens Canadian Business
• U.S. Plans to Track Visitors with RFID Chips

Home > Volume III > Issue 2: January 27, 2005 > U.S. Appeals Court Upholds Web casting Rates

U.S. Appeals Court Upholds Web casting Rates

The United States Court of Appeals in Beethoven.com LLC et al., v. Librarian of Congress, recently ruled in a challenge to the copyright license rates for web casters, in which the web casters challenged the statutory license rates for web casting as too high and copyright owners challenged them as too low. The court held that non-participants did not have the requisite standing because they were not parties to the proceeding at issue, and were thus denied their request to intervene, since the intervention was sought only for the purpose of raising new issues not covered in the participant web caster's briefs.

The court stated that it has jurisdiction to modify or vacate the Librarian's decision, only where it is determined that the findings are arbitrary. In addition, that the standard of review is "exceptionally deferential." The court found that there was no reversible error in the Librarian's decision. Even though, the Librarian placed a heavy reliance on the RIAA-Yahoo! agreement, the decision was not arbitrary. Both the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) and the Librarian offered plausible reasons for their determination of the royalty rates. Moreover, the Court noted that each of the Librarian's specific decisions challenged by the Owners is adequately explained and founded on record evidence.

For additional information, visit:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/dc/021244a.pdf