The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed a 2014 consolidated U.S. District Court ruling in Washington, D.C., on Weinstein v. Iran and six other cases (see 1411130055). The D.C. Circuit ruled Tuesday that District Judge Royce Lamberth was correct in saying country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) can’t be garnished as assets in a lawsuit judgment. The family of Ira Weinstein, who died from injuries sustained in a 1996 terrorist attack attributed to Iran, sought a transfer of Iran’s .ir ccTLD as part of the compensation the family won in a 2003 default judgment. Other cases consolidated in the 2014 district court ruling involved the ccTLDs for North Korea and Syria. D.C. Circuit Judges Karen LeCraft Henderson and Raymond Randolph affirmed Lamberth’s ruling. Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland heard oral argument in Weinstein as the D.C. Circuit’s chief judge but didn’t participate in the opinion.
Jimm Phillips
Jimm Phillips, Associate Editor, covers telecommunications policymaking in Congress for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications News in 2012 after stints at the Washington Post and the American Independent News Network. Phillips is a Maryland native who graduated from American University. You can follow him on Twitter: @JLPhillipsDC
A report from now-former ICANN Ombudsman Chris LaHatte criticizing ICANN's process for deciding whether to designate the .gay generic top-level domain as a community gTLD could influence the debate over the procedures for the organization’s gTLD program even if it doesn’t change this outcome, domain names industry stakeholders told us. The ICANN board should reject findings by two separate Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) panels that dotgay’s applications to designate .gay as a community gTLD didn’t meet a strict interpretation of ICANN’s definition of a community, LaHatte said in the report. LaHatte submitted the report to ICANN before his departure and published it on his personal blog. ICANN hadn’t released LaHatte’s report by our deadline. Dotgay has been seeking community status for .gay even as three other registries have maintained their applications for the gTLD -- Top Level Design, Minds + Machines and Rightside. A community designation automatically would award .gay to dotgay, while the gTLD would be auctioned if it remained in contention.
The recent leak of Democratic National Committee emails believed to have been stolen during a 2015 hack of DNC servers has the potential to increase the visibility of cybersecurity as an issue during the 2016 presidential campaign beyond the already-heightened profile that cybersecurity received in the Democratic and Republican parties' platforms, experts and lobbyists told us. WikiLeaks published the contents last week of almost 20,000 emails from the accounts of seven senior DNC officials, and the controversy over the emails' contents led to the resignation of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., as DNC chairwoman.
Domain name registry Donuts filed a lawsuit Friday against ICANN seeking a temporary halt to the scheduled Wednesday public auction of the .web generic top-level domain (gTLD) and $10 million in damages. The lawsuit (in Pacer), filed via Donuts’ Ruby Glen subsidiary in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, also seeks a declaratory ruling that would invalidate the anti-lawsuit covenant placed in all gTLD applications. Donuts claims ICANN breached both its contract with Donuts signed when the registry filed in May 2012 to contend for the .web gTLD and the accompanying covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The registry claims ICANN’s .web application process has allowed unfair competition practices, and ICANN was negligent in not exercising due diligence in investigating what Donuts claims are discrepancies in rival .web applicant Nu Dot Co’s disclosures about its governance structure.
SoundExchange plans to argue to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that the court should overturn the Copyright Royalty Board’s 2016-20 noninteractive webcasting rate-setting (Web IV ) ruling because of CRB use of Pandora’s past direct licensing deals with independent music label rights consortium Merlin and independent label Naxos as rate-setting benchmarks, as expected (see 1606010065). The CRB’s final version of its Web IV 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 and the three other parties appealed the CRB’s rate determination to the D.C. Circuit, which subsequently consolidated the cases into docket 16-1159 (see 1606020061 and 1606100047).
The number of entities lobbying Congress on online sales tax legislation is likely to continue to either decrease slightly or remain static through the end of 2016, amid growing perceptions that bills like the Marketplace Fairness Act (S-698) and the Remote Transactions Parity Act (HR-2775) aren't likely to move in view of the rapidly closing legislative window, two internet commerce lobbyists said in interviews. Meanwhile, the number of entities lobbying Congress on the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition may either rise or fall sharply in Q3 depending on how the debate over whether to allow the transition to proceed progresses in the coming months, stakeholders told us.
House IP Subcommittee Vice Chairman Doug Collins, R-Ga., and four other House Judiciary Committee members asked DOJ Wednesday to “independently review” the Antitrust Division’s expected decision in its review of the department’s American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc. consent decrees. DOJ is to release a final decision on the consent decrees review by the end of July. ASCAP, BMI and a range of music creators raised concerns about a preliminary version of the decision, after briefings earlier this month (see 1607070040 and 1607120077). DOJ didn't comment.
Music Creators North America and two international groups of music creators jointly protested the DOJ Antitrust Division's preliminary decision on its review of the department's American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc. consent decrees via a filing with DOJ obtained Tuesday. The other signatories on the filing were the European Composers and Songwriters Alliance and the International Council of Music Creators. MCNA member groups include the Songwriters Guild of America and the Society of Composers & Lyricists. The music creator groups' protest against the DOJ decision tracked with other music creators' comments in opposition to the plan not to alter the existing ASCAP/BMI consent decrees and to clarify that 100 percent licensing, in which any partial owner of a song would be allowed to fully license that song, is required under music licensing rules. Some music creators elected to boycott DOJ's request for comment (see 1607190063). MCNA and the other music creator groups criticized Justice for fast-tracking the comment period on its preliminary decision, saying they don't believe DOJ's argument that it needs to get its final decision “on the record as soon as possible” isn't a valid reason not to allow an extension of the deadline. Comments were due Friday. The music creator groups said they regard the preliminary decision “as serious injustices that will further damage the ability of songwriters and composers to earn a living through our chosen profession.” The preliminary decision “appears poised to add” to music creators' income devaluation resulting from marketplace changes in the digital age, the groups said. The preliminary decision is also “likely to cause serious damage to the future of American and global music culture” by “erecting hurdles that may substantially hinder collaboration among music creators in the future and by adopting positions that drastically reduce” financial incentives to creation, the groups said. DOJ hasn't given “adequate consideration” to the international implications of its decision or the objections of the Copyright Office to the reinterpretation of music licensing rules to mandate 100 percent licensing, the groups said. DOJ's decision not to approve music publishers' request to allow “partial withdrawal” from the ASCAP and BMI consent decrees is a positive step but “we do not regard this narrow point as negating in any way the damage” caused by the rest of the preliminary decision, the groups said.
Several music industry content creators who were previously active participants in DOJ Antitrust Division’s review of the department’s American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc. consent decrees confirmed they either protested Justice’s preliminary review decision via comments to the department or boycotted the new round of comments entirely, as expected (see 1607120077). DOJ briefed stakeholders earlier this month on its decision not to alter the existing ASCAP/BMI consent decrees and to clarify that 100 percent licensing, in which any partial owner of a song would be allowed to fully license that song, is required under music licensing rules. DOJ sought comment from music industry stakeholders through Friday on the preliminary decision but said it mostly was interested in hearing about specific implementation issues rather than formal objections (see 1607010065 and 1607070040). DOJ could release its final decision as soon as Monday, a music industry lobbyist told us.
An Apple proposal for simplifying the statutory mechanical royalty rate-setting framework may gain traction among stakeholders as a concept but could encounter resistance for proposing to make the existing mechanical rate for individual copies of a song a template for calculating royalties on interactive streams, music industry officials said in interviews.