Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 9, 2016

Just a few weeks ago, we wrote about the Radio Music License Committee (RMLC) filing a lawsuit against Global Music Rights (GMR) alleging that GMR was violating the antitrust laws by offering an all or nothing blanket license for rights to play the songs written by certain songwriters now represented by this new performing rights organization. RMLC was seeking to impose some oversight over the rates being charged for GMR royalties.

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Paralegal-Edu.Org

DECEMBER 30, 2016

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LegalSecretariesRock

DECEMBER 28, 2016

The debut novel by Amy Poeppel is one of the funniest books I've read this year. If you're a fan of chick-lit, this has got to be on your reading list for 2017. It was hard to feel sorry for the book's main character, Kate, who endured many pitfalls throughout the novel, when she kept me in stitches. I want to be Kate's new best friend. There's something here for everyone.

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LegalTalkNetwork

DECEMBER 27, 2016

Wow, has 2016 been a big year for Legal Talk Network. We launched four new shows, recorded interviews at eight legal conferences, took one trip with our entire staff (to ABA TECHSHOW), and consumed 1,846 cups of coffee (a rough estimate). Through all this excitement, we’ve continued to publish our monthly and bi-weekly podcasts and more legal professionals than ever are listening!

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 26, 2016

On Saturday, RMLC announced that it has reached an “interim” agreement with the new performing rights organization Global Music Rights (GMR) for a license to perform musical compositions controlled by GMR. This agreement ( available on the RMLC website here ) is an interim agreement for radio stations that elect to participate, and covers only the first 9 months of 2017.

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 6, 2016

Yesterday was a busy day for the TV incentive auction, where the FCC is attempting to clear portions of the TV band by paying TV stations to surrender their licenses, and repurpose the cleared spectrum for wireless broadband users. As we wrote earlier this week, Stage 3 of the Forward Auction started yesterday, where wireless companies would have had to come up with over $42 billion dollars to meet the costs of clearing the TV band.

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 1, 2016

The Copyright Office’s new system for registering designated agents for the service of take-down notices when it is believed that user-generated content infringes on intellectual property rights has now gone live. The Copyright Office issued a reminder, here , that all new registrations of agents for the service of these take-down notices must now be submitted in this new electronic system.

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 13, 2016

As David Oxenford has previously commented, even in states where marijuana has been legalized, broadcasters should be cautious about accepting advertising for marijuana or related paraphilia. Specifically, decisions by the FDA and the Department of Justice have done little to cut through the smoke shrouding the issue. Now, perhaps the last United States agency that one might expect to have anything to say has weighed in as well, but the haze remains thick.

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 11, 2016

While the new Congress will not begin until after the New Year, already copyright reform has been teed up to be on the agenda. Posted last week on the website of the House of Representative’s Judiciary Committee was an announcement that the committee would be posting policy proposals for copyright reform from time to time, and asking for public comment.

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Finance

Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 29, 2016

Tomorrow, the Petitions for Reconsideration of the FCC’s multiple ownership decision is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register (see the pre-publication draft here ). This will start the clock on comments on those petitions. If publication occurs as scheduled, comments will be due on Tuesday, January 17 and replies on Friday, January 27. As we wrote here in connection with the comment dates on Petitions for Reconsideration of the abolition of the UHF discount, and here when we commente

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 27, 2016

There is now a vacancy in the top position at the Copyright Office, the Register of Copyrights , and the Librarian of Congress , who appoints the Register, has asked for comments on the role and qualifications for the new Register. These comments are due by January 31, 2017. While setting copyright law has thus far been the role of Congress, the Copyright Office has an important role in administering that law, and examining policy issues to make recommendations to Congress on controversial issue

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 20, 2016

It’s the holiday season, and many of us are turning our thoughts to celebrating with friends and family. It is also high season for shopping, which means the airwaves, social media, websites and print pages are full of opportunities to buy, sell, and advertise. Whether you consider that to be a feature or a bug, this is the time to be especially vigilant about doing advertising right.

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 19, 2016

Last week, the full FCC issued a decision upholding the license renewal grant of a Pacifica-owned radio station in New York. A listener was complaining that the station broadcast favorable statements about an individual who had shot a police officer. The FCC first noted that the listener had not provided details of the statement, but further stated that the FCC is not allowed to censor the content selected by broadcasters to air on their stations.

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 16, 2016

ASCAP and the Radio Music License Committee (RMLC) announced yesterday that they have reached an agreement for the period 2017-2021, setting the performance royalties that commercial broadcasters will pay for the use of music written by composers who are represented by ASCAP. The press release issued yesterday discloses little about the details of the agreement.

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 16, 2016

The FCC yesterday issued a Public Notice of the filing of a Petition for Rulemaking asking the FCC to declare that a broadcaster, by using its own airwaves and online sources to publicize job openings at its station, satisfies the requirement that a broadcaster widely disseminate information about job openings to members of all groups within its likely recruiting area.

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 14, 2016

Almost every week, we write about some legal issue that arises in digital and social media – many times talking about the traditional media company that did something that they shouldn’t have done in the online world, and ended up with some legal issues as a result. Two weeks ago, I conducted a webinar, hosted by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters and co-sponsored by over 20 other state broadcast associations, where I tried to highlight some of the many legal issues that can be traps for t

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LegalSecretariesRock

DECEMBER 13, 2016

I hope I'm not too late for my annual list of "Do's and Don'ts" for the Holiday Party. For those of you, who haven't already had your celebrations here are some of what I like to call "helpful hints." Arrive "on time." Meaning don't be the first one there. But don't be obviously late. Don't be the last one to leave. Because if you are, that means that you didn't follow the below Don't over-imbibe.

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 12, 2016

As expected, and as we wrote last week , the FCC announced Friday that the reverse auction phase of Stage 4 of the Incentive Auction will begin tomorrow, December 12, 2016. The FCC also, as expected, confirmed that the clearing target will be 84 MHz , meaning that the FCC will be looking to clear TV channels above Channel 37. Television operators looking to surrender channels to the FCC, to be repackaged and resold to wireless users for wireless broadband purposes, will be bidding in multiple ro

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 5, 2016

A year ago, when the Copyright Royalty Board adopted the rates for webcasters (including broadcasters who simulcast their programming by online streaming) to pay for the sound recording performance royalty (see our summary here and here ), one difference from previous decisions is that there was a single per-song, per-listener royalty adopted. In the past decisions, the CRB set royalties at the beginning of a 5 year term that generally rose each year of that term.

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 4, 2016

The FCC last week announced that Stage 3 of the reverse auction portion of the FCC Incentive Auction is now complete, and the amount necessary to be paid to TV stations to vacate the required spectrum in this stage is $40,313,164,425. This represents a drop from the $54,586,032,836 clearing cost that resulted from Stage 2 reverse auction bidding. In order for the auction to close, and the TV stations who had “provisionally winning bids” in this stage of the reverse auction to get the amounts t

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 22, 2016

In the last year, noncommercial broadcast stations , both radio and TV, have been filing their Biennial Ownership Reports on FCC Form 323-E every other year, on the anniversary date of the filing of their license renewal applications. This meant that, every other month noncommercial stations in a few states had to submit those reports, with the radio stations in a state submitting them one year and the TV stations in that state the next (as the renewal terms for radio and TV are off by one year

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 20, 2016

As we wrote here , the FCC has requested comments on a petition for reconsideration of the elimination of the UHF discount – which had counted UHF stations as reaching only half of their market in assessing an owner’s compliance with the National Ownership Rules for TV. These rules limit an attributable owner from having an interest in TV stations that reach more than 39% of the national television audience.

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 12, 2016

While several parties went to Court to challenge the FCC’s decision ending the UHF discount , one broadcaster decided instead to ask for reconsideration. That petition for reconsideration has now been published in the Federal Register , giving interested parties until December 27 to comment, and other parties until January 6 to reply to any comments that are filed.

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Broadcast Law Blog

DECEMBER 15, 2016

After months of speculation, Chairman Wheeler today announced that he will step down from the FCC on Inauguration Day. Together with the Senate not confirming the renomination of Commissioner Rosenworcel (as the Senate is effectively on recess and not expected to return before the end of the term, her renomination will almost certainly not be approved in this session of Congress, meaning that she must step down when the Congress adjourns on January 3), that leaves three Commissioners on the FCC.

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