Success of House Judiciary 'Listening Tour' Seen Dependent on Expectations, Structure
The House Judiciary Committee’s planned “listening tour” of copyright stakeholders is likely to expand the committee’s access to opinions within the music and other industries, but the effectiveness of those sessions will depend on how House Judiciary focuses the sessions and how they communicate the next steps in their ongoing Copyright Act review, industry officials told us. The committee’s first roundtable, Sept. 22 in Nashville, is meant to gauge copyright legislative priorities within the music industry (see 1509100041). The Sept. 22 roundtable and any future sessions are meant to be part of Judiciary’s new round of meetings with copyright stakeholders to follow up on earlier committee hearings on copyright policy, said a committee aide.
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The Nashville roundtable and any subsequent sessions will give Judiciary access to “constituents who can’t participate in a hearing” on Capitol Hill, said musicFIRST Coalition Executive Director Ted Kalo. “It will give the committee a real-world look at how these issues impact people around the country. People who are passionate about these issues will want to go and be heard at these sessions.” The sessions will give content creators who “may not be able to have direct contact” with the Hill a chance to discuss copyright issues with legislators, said Future of Music CEOCasey Rae. “You’re not going to arrive at policy just by listening to a handful of lobbyists.” It may be “very difficult to take a true scan” of the music community’s opinions on copyright issues because the music industry is increasingly scattered across the country, but Nashville is a natural starting point because of its importance as a “company town” within the music industry, Rae said.
Future of Music and the musicFIRST Coalition are likely to monitor the Nashville roundtable and any other sessions but won’t directly participate because both groups already have a Washington presence, Kalo and Rae said separately. Rae already has met with House Judiciary as part of the committee’s meetings with those who previously testified at copyright hearings. Kalo said he plans to meet with Judiciary in the near future. The committee appears to be focused on asking stakeholders who have previously testified whether “anything has changed” in their industry’s copyright legislative priorities since testifying, Kalo said. “For us, the policy issues haven’t change, nor have our desired reforms, but I plan on pointing them to the groundswell of artist support on these issues.”
The committee appears likely to focus on copyright issues that it can move as part of larger packages and is preparing stakeholders to not expect some of their top copyright-related priorities to be addressed in the short term, Rae said. “I didn’t get a strong sense that any of the bills” that have already been introduced or floated in draft form “are going to make it to the floor” as standalone measures, Rae said. The highest profile copyright bills include the draft Copyright Office for the Digital Economy Act and the Fair Play Fair Pay Act (HR-1733). The Copyright Office’s future position within the federal government appears likely to remain a top focus for House Judiciary in the short term, with one industry lobbyist telling us he expects Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., to address the issue via his own bill as soon as December. Rae said Judiciary also gave him the impression that they wanted to make the CO’s future structure a priority. “I was surprised that this is something they really want to focus on,” he said.
House Judiciary’s perceived focus on CO's status is partially a product of continued uncertainty on broader copyright policy issues, though it does appear to be a genuine interest for Goodlatte, an industry lobbyist said. “I think there’s still going to be a lot that’s not known by the end of the year,” the lobbyist said. Ongoing Copyright Royalty Board proceedings are likely to conclude by the end of the year, but it’s “unclear to me how much information Goodlatte’s staff will have on how stakeholders feel” about the results of those proceedings. The Department of Justice’s ongoing review of consent decrees against the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) may also “drag on into next year, and without knowing what DOJ does with those songwriter-publisher issues I think it’s very hard to legislate on that,” the lobbyist said.
The success of the Nashville session and others on the House committee's tour is likely to depend on how committee members frame questions to stakeholders and how the sessions are structured, Rae said. If they are able to "match their inquiries to the community they’re addressing,” they are likely to get more useful feedback, he said: “When you go directly into a community, they’re not likely to be” versed in legislative jargon as a Washington lobbyist would be. The sessions will need to be structured in a way that allows stakeholders to articulate their concerns about issues affecting their livelihoods without its becoming an “airing of grievances,” Rae said. “Some of these issues can be highly polarized, which could make it challenging to keep things on track.” Judiciary’s willingness to engage stakeholders appears to be genuine, but the committee will need to convince them that the sessions aren’t “just political theater,” Rae said.