At the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. "Billy" Tauzin (R-LA) retains the
Chairman's slot while Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) continues to Chair the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Rep. Upton was a primary cosponsor and instrumental in the passage of legislation (4) establishing a ".kids" domain name from which content unsuitable for minors age 13 and under would be barred.

At the Senate, the Chairman slot at the Judiciary Committee passes back to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). In the past, he and ranking minority member Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) have worked cooperatively on copyright issues, dating back to the 1998 passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and
prior. Hatch takes pride in his musical composing and brings first hand knowledge of and empathy for the artist's perspective to these issues, while Leahy likes to use and experiment with new digital technologies. Copyright matters are handled at the full Committee level.

A more significant shift occurred at the Senate Commerce Committee, where the Chairman's duties passed back to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) from Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC). Senator McCain did not support Sen. Hollings' copy control initiative (discussed below). Meanwhile, Sen. Sam Brownback has succeeded to the Chair at its Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space, and has vowed to introduce legislation barring the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from taking any regulatory action to require the "broadcast flag" sought by Hollywood interests for over-the-air digital broadcasts, as well as to study "potential reforms to the DMCA to ensure that this fundamental balance [between copyright owners and the goal of copyright, namely, the public's access to intellectual works] is restored in the Copyright Act". (5)

Legislative Proposals

The only copyright legislation of note to be enacted in the 107th Congress was the Small Webcaster Settlement Act of 2002 (6). This legislation constituted Congressional intervention into the results of the procedure mandated in the DMCA for the compulsory license it created for non-interactive webcasting. The Copyright Arbitration Royalty Proceeding (CARP) set a rate of 0.07 cents per song, far lower than the 0.4 cents rate proposed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) but still substantially higher than the rate proposed by webcasting interests. In response to protests that the rate would bankrupt many webcasters, the Librarian of Congress rejected the CARP recommendation and cut the royalty rate in half. Yet small webcasters continued to argue that only an alternative, revenue-based rate would allow them to continue operating. House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner introduced a bill to postpone imposition of the royalty rate for six months. Opposition from music industry interests resulted in a House compromise that allowed small webcasters to pay an alternative, percentage-of-revenues royalty. When this bill arrived in the Senate a "hold" placed upon it, prompted by religious broadcasters, resulted in a final deal postponing the payment of royalties by non-profit and public entity webcasters, for the period covering October 1998 through May 2003, until June 2003. It also permits the RIAA-affiliated SoundExchange collection agency to negotiate alternative royalty payments with those entities as well as with small commercial webcasters, including rates based on a percentage of expenses or revenues; and authorizes SoundExchange to deduct certain administration and licensing costs prior to distributing collected revenues to rights holders.