SECTION 5 |
30
STREAMING
MPEG License & Music Copyright
The MPEG encoders in Zephyr iPort PLUS are properly licensed for professional, non-public applications such as
broadcast remotes, private distribution systems, and the like. We’ve paid the fees as part of the cost of making the
Zephyr iPort PLUS (in fact, it is a significant part of our expense), and the use license is passed to you when you
buy the equipment. For this kind of application, you have no need to pay any additional fees.
However, public streaming applications may require additional license payments. It’s your responsibility to
investigate whether you have this obligation.
Musical compositions and sound recordings are creative works that are protected by the copyright laws of the
United States (title 17, U.S. Code) and other countries. Under U.S. law, the owner of a copyright has the exclusive
right to (and to authorize others to) reproduce the work, use parts of the work in a new creation, distribute
the work in whole or in part, and to publicly display or perform the work (including on web pages and through
webcasting). With few exceptions, it is illegal to reproduce, distribute or broadcast a sound recording without the
permission of the copyright owner. It is your responsibility to comply with the copyright laws of the United States
and other countries in which you broadcast and to pay all applicable royalties to the copyright owners when you
become a webcaster.
There have been recent amendments to the copyright law regarding webcasting of sound recordings. These new
provisions allow webcasting under the terms of a statutory license, as a way to help webcasters get permission
without having to go to each sound recording’s owner. The statutory license, however, has strict requirements that
you must follow. Some of these requirements include the payment of license fees, limitations on the number of
songs from the same album or artist that may be played in a three hour period (called the sound recording perfor-
mance complement); a prohibition on publishing advance playlists; and a requirement to identify the song, artist
and album on the website. There are other requirements as well. The Recording Industry Association of America
provides quite a bit of information on copyright law as it applies to webcasting, and both ASCAP and BMI have
created license agreements that they are willing to grant to webcasters that they believe conform to the provisions
of the new copyright rules for webcasting. For additional information on the statutory license and other aspects of
webcasting, please visit the following sites:
The U.S. Copyright Office
http://www.copyright.gov
The Recording Industry Association of America
http://www.riaa.com/issues/music/webcasting
ASCAP
http://www.ascap.com/weblicense/webintro.html
BMI
http://www.bmi.com/iama/webcaster/index.asp
