RIAA Rejects Audio Flag Talks In CPTWG, It Says In Reply to Boucher
As long as CEA stays dead-set against audio flag talks that address the “cherry-picking” or “disaggregation” of digital HD Radio content, RIAA won’t take part in Copyright Protection Technical Working Group (CPTWG) meetings, RIAA Chmn. Mitch Bainwol told Rep. Boucher (D-Va.). Bainwol was replying to Boucher’s July 27 letter scoring RIAA for its absence from last week’s CPTWG meeting.
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The “outright refusal” by CEA -- a co-chair of CPTWG -- to take on “the primary problem” of disaggregation “renders participation in their forum an exercise in futility,” Bainwol said: “Indeed, their refusal to address the issue at hand combined with their insistence that we participate in their forum might lead one to believe that they are simply insisting on such a process in order to prevent progress towards a real solution.”
CPTWG isn’t even “the appropriate forum” for talks on audio flag rules, Bainwol said. CPTWG’s role is to formulate technical standards for digital broadcasts, and “we already have a technical standard” for HD Radio, he said: “The issues remaining are policy issues regarding how much copying should be allowed, not the technology standard or development. Those policy questions need to be addressed by the parties and, if necessary, the Congress.”
Talks among “interested parties motivated to come to a solution” are needed to resolve the audio flag impasse, Bainwol said. But the lack of a performance right for over- the-air radio “prevents the marketplace from operating as it should to resolve this issue,” he said: “One reason why CPTWG works to develop technology for the video industry is that motion pictures are granted exclusive performance rights under the law. If CEA does not come to the table to work out technology protection, the motion picture studios have the right to hold back their content, rendering the receiving devices made by CEA members useless. CEA needs content, MPAA needs protection, the marketplace works and CPTWG functions. We cannot hold back our music. CEA has no incentive to come to the table. The marketplace does not work.”
RIAA is ready to sit down with CEA “in any forum” -- including CPTWG, Bainwol said. But CEA must agree “to address the concerns of all parties involved” on audio flag, he said. That includes not just the mass, indiscriminate Internet redistribution of HD Radio content, but also the disaggregation of songs on recording devices, he said.