Musician advocates urged fellow recording artists to become more active on licensing issues on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Content Creators Coalition Executive Director Jeffrey Boxer and others pinpointed the need for more musician backing of the Fair Play Fair Pay Act (HR-1733). “If you're sitting here and you're saying 'I need a takeaway,'” from the event, "we need letters" sent to the House Judiciary Committee in favor of HR-1733, Boxer said during a Future of Music Coalition (FMC)-Georgetown University event. HR-1733 would require terrestrial radio stations to begin paying performance royalties and would require digital broadcasters to begin paying royalties for pre-1972 sound recordings. The bill also would require satellite broadcasters to pay royalties at market rates (see 1504130056 and 1504160050).
Pandora’s $90 million settlement with the RIAA and five record labels to end the labels’ lawsuit over unpaid performance royalties on pre-1972 recordings will likely have national implications, though it doesn’t fully resolve the status of those recordings, industry lawyers and other stakeholders told us. Pandora’s settlement ends the labels’ lawsuit in New York (see 1404210027), though Pandora said the settlement “provides a nationwide resolution for Pandora’s use” of the labels’ pre-1972 recordings. Judges in California and New York had decided their states’ laws allowed performance royalties for pre-1972 recordings in the absence of a federal mandate.
The Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) believes it reached a high-level consensus on enough key parts of its proposed package of changes to ICANN's accountability mechanisms that it will be able to present a final proposal to the ICANN board by late January, CCWG-Accountability co-Chairman Leon Sanchez told stakeholders Thursday. ICANN leaders and stakeholders had been meeting in Dublin since Sunday on a wide range of Internet governance and domain name issues, but negotiations on a compromise on the CCWG-Accountability proposal had been widely seen as dominating the conference (see 1510160058). A January submission of the CCWG-Accountability proposal to the ICANN board could result in ICANN approval of the plan during its March 5-10 meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, but that's highly dependent on the new draft not requiring further major changes, stakeholders told us.
The Senate slightly advanced the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754) Thursday, voting 83-14 to end debate on a manager's amendment that Senate Intelligence Committee leaders have expanded in recent days to include language from a slate of new and existing amendments. Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., included language from eight amendments originally slated to receive separate votes on the Senate floor, in a bid to speed consideration of the bill (see 1510210052). They further expanded their manager's amendment Thursday before the Senate vote, agreeing to include language from an amendment proposed by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., that would significantly expand penalties for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Whitehouse criticized Senate leaders Wednesday for ruling his amendment wasn't germane and wouldn't be considered separately.
A series of procedural moves by Senate leaders Tuesday generated a schedule that they say will set up a final vote on the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754) early next week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., filed cloture on a substitute package for S-754 that contains an enlarged manager's amendment that, as expected (see 1510200073), contains the language from several of the amendments that had been included in the early August deal to move the long-stalled bill forward. The first cloture vote on the manager's amendment from Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., will occur Thursday unless Senate leaders can reach a deal on an alternative schedule for debating the manager's amendment and other amendments.
Google significantly reduced its lobbying spending in Q3 year-over-year from 2014, but remained the top tech and Internet industry spender for the quarter, according to lobbying disclosure reports due Tuesday. Google reported $3.65 million in lobbying costs for the quarter, down from $3.94 million during the same period last year. Other top companies varied between increases and decreases in their year-over-year Q3 spending. Top industry groups generally reported lower lobbying spending numbers. Several top telecom industry players also reported drop-offs in lobbying spending (see 1510200064 and 1510210051) .
The Senate took steps Tuesday to return the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754) to the floor. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters “it’s my plan to move to cybersecurity,” after the Senate voted on the Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act (S-2146). The latter then failed to advance, on a 54-45 cloture vote. “We have an agreement to get on” S-754, McConnell told reporters. “We have a number of amendments in the queue.” McConnell suspended consideration of S-754 in August but reached a deal on a set of 22 amendments that would be considered once the bill returned to the floor (see 1510060046). McConnell was expected to re-file cloture on S-754 later Tuesday.
The Financial Services Roundtable (FSR) began broadcasting an ad Monday on Washington-area radio station WTOP and is circulating a video via YouTube supporting the controversial Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act amid continued interest in S-754’s prospects in the Senate. The U.S. “needs a team approach to fight this national security threat,” FSR said in its radio ad. CISA “is part of the solution. This bill would enable businesses and the government to voluntarily share cyberthreat information, not personal information, to better protect Americans from hackers. Tell the Senate, we need to pass CISA now. Hackers aren’t waiting, so why are we?” It remains unclear if S-754 will return to the Senate floor this week as the bill’s top supporters had hoped earlier this month (see 1510060046). Senate leaders may tee it up once the body votes as early as Tuesday on a bill prohibiting federal funding for sanctuary cities, an industry lobbyist said. Senate consideration of S-754 was previously delayed amid negotiations over condensing the original 22 amendments up for consideration. FSR and other financial services groups have strongly backed S-754. FSR and 13 other finance-related groups said in a joint letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee that passage of the bill “would be a significant step forward toward clarifying what is permissible and what is not and ensuring that the government and the private sector work more closely together to mitigate cyber threats.” Meanwhile, Wikimedia joined the tech entities that have begun publicly opposing S-754. Its policy division said via Twitter Sunday that “we believe in fighting for our users['] privacy and security,” while S-754 “endangers both.”
A possible compromise mechanism for enforcing proposed new ICANN community powers received increased attention during Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) sessions in the first days of ICANN’s Dublin meeting. The compromise “sole designator” model is being touted by supporters as a way to break a stalemate between backers of CCWG-Accountability’s original enforcement single member model and the ICANN board’s proposed “Multistakeholder Enforcement Mechanism” (see 1509140064).
Compromise negotiations on a proposed set of changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms are widely expected to dominate ICANN’s planned meeting in Dublin, with stakeholders telling us that other issues to be debated during the meeting have become secondary concerns amid a lack of consensus on accountability fixes linked to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition. The ICANN 54 meeting was set to officially begin Sunday, but preliminary meetings that began Friday included a Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) session to continue internal discussions on its ICANN accountability proposal.