Librarian of Congress Wants Most Webcasters Shut Out From Appeals Process

Kurt Hanson writes:

In a new twist to the ongoing battle regarding Internet radio royalty rates, the Librarian of Congress filed a motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals yesterday, arguing that webcasters who did not participate in the CARP are not “an aggrieved party who would be bound by the determination” and thus should not be allowed to file an appeal in court against his decision!

Librarian James Billington’s argument is based on a reading of the word “party” in that phrase “an aggrieved party who would be bound by the determination” to mean a party to the CARP proceedings rather than a more straightforward
layman’s read (i.e., a synonym for “entity”).

This is despite the fact that, to participate in the CARP process, a webcaster would have had to commit to paying an unknown portion of the million-dollar-plus cost of the proceedings “in such manner and proportion as the arbitration panels shall direct.”

Thus, a webcaster without major financial resources could neither (A) afford to participate in the CARP proceedings nor, according now to Billington (pictured), can it (B) subsequently object to the decision in court!

The Librarian’s motion reads, “While this language of Section 802(g) has yet to be specifically construed by this Court, in other contests, such a restriction of judicial review to ‘parties’ has been uniformly construed by this Court and other courts of appeals to mean that the person seeking a judicial review must have had a more than de minimus participation in the proceedings under review.”….