DC Circuit Consolidates Appeals of CRB 2016-20 Noninteractive Webcast Rates

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit consolidated three petitions for a review of the Copyright Royalty Board’s 2016-20 noninteractive webcasting rate-setting (Web IV) ruling with SoundExchange’s petition in docket 16-1159 (in Pacer). The three additional appeals of the CRB ruling were by musician George Johnson, the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System and the National Religious Broadcasters Noncommercial Music License Committee (all in Pacer). SoundExchange’s statement of issues to be raised and other initial filings are due July 1, and other parties must file their statements by July 11, the D.C Circuit said in a Thursday order (in Pacer). The CRB’s final version of its 2016-2020 noninteractive webcasting ruling, released in early May, set rates at 0.17 cent per performance on nonsubscription services and 0.22 cent per performance on subscription services (see 1605020058). SoundExchange is seen as likely to focus its appeal at least partially on CRB's use of Pandora’s past direct licensing deals with independent music label rights consortium Merlin and independent label Naxos as benchmarks for the Web IV rate-setting (see 1606010065).