By a 410-10 vote, the House approved the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property, or Pro-IP, Act, which is backed by the entertainment industry and other major copyright holders. . . .
The bill would rewrite U.S. law to allow federal officials to seize property--including computers or other equipment used to commit intellectual-property crimes or obtained as a result of those proceeds--from people convicted of making unauthorized copies of music, movies, or live performances. In civil cases, federal agents would have to establish that there was a "substantial connection" between the property and the offense.
Oncopyright 2008 will bring together thought leaders and change agents together to explore the evolving world of copyright. It's a unique opportunity to share insights and exchange ideas on where copyright is headed, and how it will aggect the future of written works, music and other forms of intellectual property.
Speakers include Clay Shirky, Suzanne Vega and the perspicacious Paul Fakler.
The designer who made some of the outfits used in the Star Wars films is facing a legal battle with George Lucas over who owns the copyright, it was reported.
The row is over the merchandising rights for the stormtrooper uniforms, the imperial fighter pilots' headgear and the helmet designed for Luke Skywalker that he wore leading the final assault on the Death Star in the first film.
Designer Andrew Ainsworth, from Twickenham, West London, made the first helmets and suits for the original film in the 1970s and said he sold the initial 50 stormtrooper helmets to Star Wars creator Lucas for £35 each.
A seemingly home-spun operation with no obvious profit motive, Muxtape allows anyone to upload a series of songs to its servers to create, and then distribute online, a digital "mix tape" along the lines of the ones you made for your unrequited paramours back in college.
Article quotes friends of the blog Fred von L. and Eric G.
INTERNET sites in Australia will be allowed to show short video clips of Olympic events for the first time during the Beijing Games, following a historic agreement announced yesterday between the Seven Network and the International Olympic Committee.
Carl Malamud has been bothered for 25 years by the fact that U.S. case law is locked away from the public's eyes. As a wonkish graduate student at the Indiana University School of Business in the 1980s, he was forced on occasion to sneak into the law school library to look something up -- because the library was for law professors and law students only.
In the years that followed Malamud has scored an extraordinary track record at getting information into the public domain. Thanks to him and other digital activists, in the mid-1990s the Securities and Exchange Commission put the financial filings of public companies online. In the late 1990s, due in part to aggressive lobbying by Malamud, the Patent and Trademark Office made the full database of granted patents and trademarks available and searchable online. Recently, as part of his effort to get the Smithsonian Institution to free up access to its collection of historical images, Malamud bought and downloaded 6,000 images and posted them on the free Web-sharing service Flickr.
You are required to advise the US Copyright Registry of your intent to license this website if registration is administered through the UCR as this is your final notice.
Note: you may disregard this notice. If you disregard this notice or fail to reply:
UCR and the United States Patent and Trademark office will NOT be liable for infringement of your website, interruption of business activity or business losses.
I would venture that the statement that "if you fail to notify UCR, that the US PTO will not be liable for interruption of business activity," is true on its face. Having said that, the seeming if/then quality of the sentence lends a certain implication of causality that may not be warranted.
Also, check out the US Copyright Registry website, which features a picture of Reagan Administration officials James Baker, Ed Meese and Michael Deaver, no doubt obtained from a Google Image search of 'official-looking guys.'
San Francisco based Crunchyroll, a sort of YouTube for anime and other mostly Asian video content, raised a $4 million round of financing led by Venrock Associates, with partner David Siminoff joining the board of directors.
. . .
We first covered the company in August 2007, and noted that they rely almost exclusively on copyright infringing content.
It is entirely proper for U.S. industries to protect their own interests. IIPA’s website, though, shoots for a loftier goal, that of helping to create “a legal and enforcement regime for copyright that not only deters piracy, but that also fosters technological and cultural development in these countries, and encourages local investment and employment.” The last two clauses evoke a globally beneficent outlook, one reminiscent of the “a raising tide lifts all boats” bromide according to which very high levels of protection are actually good for other countries because it protects authors from those countries. The bromide is false, though, and not only because the IIPA doesn't do outreach to help local investment or employment in foreign countries: it is also false because the ill-effects of hyper-copyright are felt in the U.S., from orphan works, to oppressive remedies, and misuse of circumvention rights to squelch competition and preserve outmoded business models.
Eames Office licenses the IP of Charles and Roy Eames. They created the Dot Pattern in 1949 and Eames Office published it as a fabric in 1999. The Pod Hotel obtained a swatch but did not purchase the licensed fabric. It instead allegedly purchased a 'knock off'. The Eames pattern was used in promotional material for the hotel and noted in reviews of the hotel.
Eames Office has now sued on copyright and trademark grounds.
Eames Office, LLC and Mahram Fabric Corp. v. BD Hotels LLC, Swavelle/Mill Creek Fabrics, Inc. and Vanessa Guilford, 1:2008cv00988 (SD NY January 30, 2008).
After the National Football League gave warning last year to an Indianapolis church not to hold a Super Bowl viewing party, churches across the country are canceling their annual Super Bowl fellowships in fear of getting flagged for copyright violations.
North River Community Church in Pembroke, Mass., had scheduled a big gathering this Sunday with the big game on a giant video screen in the congregation's worship center. But the church's pastor, the Rev. Paul Atwater, called it off after he looked over the NFL's policies and news reports of churches that were threatened with legal action for planning similar showings last year, according to The Daily News Tribune.
" . . . a proprietary, patent-pending, visual search platform that is valuable for companies who need to effectively index, filter, manage and monetize large image collections. Eyealike functionality is targeted towards companies that have rich image based content. Our visual search solutions can be white-labeled to fit specific consumer product needs allowing the end user to improve their search results through the use of image searching."
The 2008 RPM Challenge — to write and record an original album in February, just because you can — is about to begin. Hundreds of musicians from around the world have already signed up. Last year, more than 850 albums were recorded as part of the challenge, a testament to what can be done by independent musicians without a label, without the RIAA, and often without a professional studio.
Marc Fisher, a Post columnist, wrote on Sunday that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) asserted in a legal brief that anyone who copies music from a CD onto their computer is a thief.
. . .
Quoting from the brief, Fisher wrote that the RIAA had argued that MP3 files created from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" and violate the law. If it were true, the move would represent a major shift in strategy by the RIAA, which typically hasn't challenged an individual's right to copy CDs for personal use.
The problem with Fisher's story is that nowhere in the RIAA's brief does the group call someone a criminal for simply copying music to a computer."
The article goes on to quote Prof Patry on the Pariser quote (noted in the post below:
This new rhetoric of 'everything anyone does without (RIAA) permission is stealing' is well worth noting and well worth challenging at every occasion," Patry wrote. "It is the rhetoric of copyright as an ancient property right, permitting copyright owners to control all uses as a natural right; the converse is that everyone else is an immoral thief."
Whether customers may copy their CDs onto their computers -- an act at the very heart of the digital revolution -- has a murky legal foundation, the RIAA argues. The industry's own Web site says that making a personal copy of a CD that you bought legitimately may not be a legal right, but it "won't usually raise concerns," as long as you don't give away the music or lend it to anyone.
. . .
The Howell case was not the first time the industry has argued that making a personal copy from a legally purchased CD is illegal. At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' " she said.
"But for U.S. content owners, the EU reciprocity provision for term extension was merely a stalking horse for the greater prize: extending the term 20 years for U.S. works., and not just any U.S. works, but pre-existing ones, whose term would go from 75 to 95 years from publication, after already having been increased from 56 years to 75 years in 1978. It is these old act works that content industries were concerned about, not new act ones governed by life plus 50: after all, who in 1998, when term extension was passed, was worried about works whose term of protection were scheduled to expire in 2073? Who knew in 1998 what works would be worth anything in 2073? No one. But people in 1998 did have a fair idea about works created 75 years before are still be valuable. So to be clear about the purpose of term extension, it has always been about the past, not the future; it has always been about keeping pre-existing works out of the public domain and not about any alleged incentive to create new ones."
I have actually met and had a lengthy conversation with someone who practices dressage. So any way, the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders' and Exhibitors' Association has sued the National Walking Horse Association on copyright and trademark grounds. Plaintiff issues pedigree 'registry certificates' to horse owners. Defendant has assembled a pedigree database in part by soliciting horse owners to supply their regsitry certificates from plaintiff. Plaintiff claims copyright in its certificates. Ruling: Defedant can ask horse owners to supply the information in their plaintiff certificates but Defendants may not copy the certificates themselves, or ask for such certificates by name.
Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders' and Exhibitors' Association v National Walking Horse Association, 1:05-0088 (MD Tenn Dec 12, 2007).
We have this pillow and this sofa, in microfiber (because of the dogs) at home. Anyway, Galbraith & Paul owns the copyright in this donut design and someone, allegedly, produced lamp shades that allegedly infringe the fabric, and Ruby Tuesday has such lamps in its restaurants. It then ran photos of its restaurants with the lamps in the background in promotional materials (cropped example above).
Galbraith & Paul has now sued Ruby Tuesday in the SDNY, on copyright and trademark grounds.
PRACTICE POINTER: If you operate a business in some sort of public space, such as a restaurant, and you utilize a furnishing or a decoration that may contain a copyrightable element (such as a lampshade, or a wallpaper or a poster), then your use of such an item may constitute a public display of the work, and if the item is infringing, then you may have some exposure for copyright infringement. You may have a claim against the supply store that sold you the 50,000 lampshades or whatever, which you may be able to collect on if they still return phone calls. When buying items, even useful items like lamps and chairs, that will be displayed in public, you need reps and warranties and indemnification from the supplier, that will cover potential copyright and trade dress claims.
Counterfeit Chic: "The Manolo's Guide to Holiday (Photo)Shopping" commenting on the Manolo website pointing out the photos of the Christian Louboutin shoe on the left and the Steve Madden shoe on the right.
Copyright expires in Canada 50 years after the author's death. European copyright expires 70 years after the author's death. Accordingly, some works might be public domain in Canada that might still be protected in Europe.
IMSLP received this demand letter from the Austrian publisher of composers such as Bartok and Mahler (Bartok died 62 years ago, Mahler died 96 years ago (??)). The letter threatens legal action against the coordinator of IMSLP personally, in Europe, and notes that Canada could enforce such a judgement.
The MPAA's use of Anderson is one of a series of controversies the movie industry is confronting in its zero-tolerance war on piracy. MediaDefender, a California company that tracks and disrupts file sharing of movies and music, was reported to Swedish authorities last month by The Pirate Bay, after an internet leak revealed the extent to which MediaDefender pollutes file-sharing services with fake, decoy content. And an executive at a national theater chain successfully pressed New Jersey authorities in August to prosecute a teenager for filming 20 seconds of a movie at a theater to show to her little brother later.
With regard to allegtions that copyright owners 'pollute file-sharing services with fake, decopy content', I have always been concerned to what extent an IP owner can commit what might possibly be tortious behavior towards an entity whose activites may be wholly or partly lawful with regard to that IP owner.
"Thirty individuals at MIT have been sent pre-litigation settlement letters after allegedly illegally downloading copyrighted music, according to a press release issued by the Recording Industry Association of America last month.
The letters are part of an RIAA strategy announced February 2007 that give students accused of piracy a chance to settle outside of court. The pre-litigation letters offer discounted settlements compared to settlements available after civil court proceedings begin, according to the press release."
"The only real question now is how fast will the music industry model come tumbling down. When Radiohead led the way in offering their music directly to fans many predicted that the move was the beginning of the end; Madonna may well be the tipping point from where we will now see a flood of recording artists dumping record labels and where todays model will shortly become a footnote in Wikipedia."
In 1998 I co-wrote with C. Mende an article entitled "Madonna and Audio Streaming" where I'm sure I predicted all of this because I'm so damn prescient, but I'm getting a "page not found error" from ljextra.com, so it's like the article never even existed.
UPDATE: oh, it looks like someone saved a copy of "Madonna and Audio Streaming." Looks like my prediction that 'only time will tell' was wrong.
Not fearing the wrath of Stewie, my colleagues at Moses & Singer have filed a complaint against Fox and the producers of "The Family Guy", alleging copyright infringement of the song "When You Wish Upon A Star."
"Slashdot has an entry about a lawsuit filed this week by parents of a Texas minor whose photograph was used by Virgin Australia in an advertising campaign. The photograph was taken by an adult. He posted it to Flickr under a CC-Attribution license. The parents of the minor are complaining that Virgin violated their daughter's right to privacy (by using a photograph of her for commercial purposes without her or her parents permission). The photographer is also a plaintiff. He is complaining that Creative Commons failed "to adequately educate and warn him ... of the meaning of commercial use and the ramifications and effects of entering into a license allowing such use." (Count V of the complaint)."
"In one case, a Universal executive asked if there was any data showing the music industry's lawsuits were resulting in less file-sharing activity from addresses ending in .edu -- namely, colleges and universities. Mr. Saaf forwarded the message to five MediaDefender employees with the message 'Take a moment to laugh to yourselves.'"
The Tenth Circuit has handed down a very important copyright case, Golan v. Gonzales, which holds that section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act-- which implements the Berne Convention on copyrights-- may violate the First Amendment because it takes some materials out of the public domain and makes them copyrighted. Relying on language in Eldred v. Reno, the court held that the URAA violated the First Amendment because it altered the "traditional contours of copyright law." It pointed out that the tradition in the United States has been for works to be created, copyrighted and then revert to the public domain. It also pointed out that traditionally Congress has rarely ever restored copyrights for public domain works, and then only in emergency situations where, for example, war prevented the authors from complying with copyright formalities. The court concluded that neither the idea/expression distinction nor the fair use defense ameliorated the fact that work that was free for anyone to use was now locked up in fresh copyrights. Hence it remanded for further determination of whether the URAA is content neutral or content based in order to apply the appropriate level of scrutiny.
Counterfeit Chic: "Copying Clothes Over a High-Speed Connection"
"In today's New York Times, Eric Wilson goes behind the scenes at Simonia Fashions, one of many companies waiting for the first photos from New York Fashion Week to appear online. Not because the proprietors are interested in fashion's new creative direction, mind you, but so that they can pick out the most popular designs and get cheap copies into stores -- often before the originals are available for sale."
"The teen arrested last month for filming 20 seconds of Transformers in a Virginia theater has pleaded guilty to one count of unlawfully recording a motion picture in violation of state law."
"The domination of two legal research services over the publication of federal and state court decisions is being challenged by an Internet gadfly who has embarked on an ambitious project to make more than 10 million pages of case law available free online.
The project is the latest effort of Carl Malamud, an activist who founded public.resource.org in March, with the broad intent of building “public works” accessible via the network, and with the specific plan to force the federal government to make information more publicly accessible."
"Bassist Brian Ritchie sued lead vocalist Gordon Gano on Wednesday, saying he was deprived of credit for some of the group's songs and a proper accounting of its earnings.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, also accuses Gano of trashing the band's reputation by allowing its signature hit, "Blister in the Sun," to be used in a Wendy's commercial."
"Owing to a misconfigured server, Facebook exposed its homepage code to what the company called “a handful of users” over the weekend. The leaked code was promptly posted on a new blog, Facebook Secrets, for all of the internet to see.
One group that should be quite happy with the leak is ConnectU, the company currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Facebook which alleges that the latter stole code from the former. If the alleged code happened to be on Facebook’s front page, ConnectU’s case just got a whole lot stronger, though ConnectU hasn’t said anything to that effect."
"In a request for class action status which, if and when successful, will ultimately include every one of the 30,000 or so RIAA victims [plaintiffs are] looking to recover compensation for the, “significant damages caused by the Defendants” as well as punitive damages, statutory penalties, litigation fees and expenses and equitable relief.
. . . [plaintiffs are] citing negligence, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, federal and state RICO, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trespass, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, deceptive business practices, misuse of copyright law, and civil conspiracy."
"Social-networking start-up Facebook Inc. says it pulled a service called Facebook Audio from its Web site because the service violated copyright rules. Facebook Audio allowed Facebook users to play full-length songs within its pages. . . . The RIAA had written July 9 to Facebook Audio, asking it to remove pages on Facebook that contained links to outside Web sites that had posted infringing material."
"A computer-industry trade group plans to file a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday, alleging that several content companies are overstepping bounds with their copyright warnings, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site.
The Computer and Communications Industry Association, which represents such companies as Google Inc and Microsoft Corp., wants the commission to order copyright holders to stop wording warnings in what it says is misrepresentative, the paper reported."
"While Harry Potter may need an invisibility cloak to fight evil, the average Internet user does not need a cloak to use the Internet. The anonymity TorrentSpy has offered its users facilitates the mass distribution of content without permission or compensation to the owners of the copyrights in those works."
"A French court has ruled that online video site Daily Motion infringed copyright by knowingly allowing users to post videos without permission of the copyright owner. Daily Motion plans to appeal."
I can find no online discussion of the case yet. A copy of the French decision is here.
ConnectU alleges that the founder of Facebook worked for it when he when he was an undergraduate. It has sued, alleging copyright infringement, breach of contract, theft of trade secret and other causes. It had sued several years ago, and re-filed the complaint this past March. There has been some coverage of this lawsuit in the past however it has been mostly under the radar. There's a burst of coverage now due to an upcoming hearing on Facebook's motion to dismiss.
Email me and I'll send you the complaint, Facebook's Motion to Dismiss and ConnectU's response to the MTD.
Dealing with potential infirngements by fans is tricky. In this discussion by EFF, this is identified as bad:
"On behalf of the artist’s label, we do appreciate that – of course – you are a fan of / are promoting The New Pornographers but, by the same token, you must also appreciate that, by posting a pirate copy of the album or tracks from the album – or, as in this case, a special ‘bonus’ track – pre-release (or linking to pirate copies), you are potentially causing considerable inconvenience and we are sure that you would not want to be personally responsible (or liable) for all of the resulting damage and disruption."
and this is good:
"hi
this is Colin from the Decemberists. Please please please pretty
please don't post those new songs on your blog. We'd really love to
see the record come out in its own time. I realize it's kind of
pointless to try to fight leaking, but for what it's worth. . .
I recognize that you're doing it because you like the band and are
being supportive, but you know how these things are: eventually, they
fall into the hands of less respectful people and it spreads like
wildfire from there.
"Second Life entrepreneur Kevin Alderman filed a copyright infringement lawsuit on Tuesday against Second Life resident Volkov Catteneo, and Alderman’s lawyer said he plans to subpoena Linden Lab to force it to disclose Catteneo’s real-world identity."
This article, discussing the alleged distribution of infringing copies of a move, asks:
"whether those who downloaded the movie could have helped ticket sales by spurring word-of-mouth sales."
Is the article asking:
1. If ticket sales are spurred, is that a defense to infringement?
2. if ticket sales are spurred, should copyright holders not prosecute?
3. if ticket sales are spurred, should copyright holders re-evaluate how they distribute their content?
"In a move designed to protect the Internet operations of its 32 teams, the pro football league has told news organizations that it will no longer permit them to carry unlimited online video clips of players, coaches or other officials, including video that the news organizations gather themselves on a team's premises. News organizations can post no more than 45 seconds per day of video shot at a team's facilities, including news conferences, interviews and practice-field reports."
As Thomas Pynchon once wrote: Some people can't see the a great work of architecture without thinking "chase scene."
Such people will be troubled by this BBC Report that the Church of England is planning legal action against Sony, for use of Manchester Cathedral as a background for a video game scene.
The Seattle Trademark Lawyer points to a brief discussion of the Australian take on the general issue of building protection, in the context of photographs of the Sydney Opera House.
Prof Patry wonders what the UK law would be here so I asked world-famous UK lawyer and foremost authority Jane Mutimear , who replies:
" . . . [P]eople who comment on news stories of this nature might find
it worthwhile checking when Manchester Cathedral was built, and remind
themselves as to how long copyright lasts. Even if they can't remember
the difference lengths for the different types of copyright, they might
remember that the longest term is life plus 70, so it would be safe to
assume that architectual copyright didn't last forever and then work out
how old the architect would have to have lived for copyright still to
subsist . . . (Unless they think that God is the architect and believe he is not dead)
It's a passing off issue, if anything, obviously."
This Jason Calacanis post is interesting as to how he (correctly) guessed that a health-related WikiPedia article had been copied from a prior NIH document (it was good and it had very few edits).
Who does Dodge have to pay to use 'Smoke on the Water', and how much?
Who does Apple have to pay to use 'School of Rock' using 'Smoke on the Water' and how much?
I asked my colleague at Moses and Singer, Paul Fakler, these questions.
The song is performed in two ways in the Dodge commercial, first by the 'engineer', and second as what sounded to my ears as the Deep Purple recording.
As for the engineer's version, Dodge would need to negotiate a one-off synchronization license with the owner of the publishing rights (blanket licenses such as a Harry Fox Mechanical License don't cover use of copyrighted music in audio-visual works). These licenses can run into the tens of thousands or higher if we're discussing, for example. The Beatles).
As for use in the commercial of what I thought was the Deep Purple version, Paul notes that we don't know that it is Deep Purple for sure. If a sound recording is used, the owner of the recording copyright, usually the record label, would request a license. If the requested fee for a sound recording is high, the advertiser may be motivated to hire session musicians to create a soundalike recording.
What if the soundalike recording contains some element, such as a vocal (or maybe even an instrument) that is associated with an individual? Then you would consult the Bette Midler/Tom Waits line of cases discussing right of publicity (and neighboring rights).
OK, as for Apple. First, it is using a clip from the movie 'School of Rock,' so that presumably is licensed. While the movie company would normally obtained a sync license to use the song, it is not likely that its sync license would have given it rights that extend beyond its use in connection with the movie, In other words, the advertiser that uses a movie clip can't get rights to the music used in a movie 'through' the movie. Therefore Apple would, we assume, also have to obtain a sync licence from the publishing company. As to whether Apple needs to pay Jack Black for his masterful musical performance, probably not, assuming that what we are hearing is the audio portion of the movie, and not a separately recorded version (such as sometimes is found on a movie soundtrack CD).
As another aside, use of the actors' images in the commercial, as a matter of industry custom, was most likely granted. Maybe Jack Black will get a little extra from the movie company, for this sort of thing.
Youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com - website"dedicated to pointing out those things that give you that feeling of 'haven't l seen that somewhere before?, specifically allegedly infringing things" HT Boing Boing.
" . . . about 2 percent of the songs in the company’s catalog have licensed guitar tablature associated with them.
For the remaining songs in Famous Music’s catalog — and the vast majority of the music publishing industry’s collective catalog — there is insufficient demand to justify the costs of publishing tablature.
As a result, guitarists who want to know how to play less mainstream songs have gone to sites where amateurs post tablature. Under this agreement, MusicNotes, publishers and artists will essentially earn money from an army of volunteers, who are creating content that the publishers are not creating on their own."
"Missteps made today could have grave consequences for the future, particularly when it comes to consumers' willingness to pay for movies and television shows online, she believes. To illustrate the point, she tells of her niece's fish, named Mortimer, who one day leaped from his bowl, flopped on the table and gasped for air.
"Mortimer took the leap to freedom," she said. "He said, 'I'm free, but I'm dead,' " said Antonellis."
"EMI Group PLC on Monday announced a deal that will allow computer company Apple Inc. to sell the record company's songs online without copy protection software.
The agreement means that customers of Apple's iTunes store will soon be able to play downloaded songs by the Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Coldplay and other top-selling artists without the copying restrictions once imposed by their label.
EMI said almost all of its catalog, excluding music by The Beatles, is included in the deal"
News.com: "Starz Sues Disney Over Movie Downloads":
"Liberty Media Holding's Starz Entertainment cable network said on Thursday it is suing a unit of Walt Disney for allowing other movie download services to sell titles while they were exclusively licensed to Starz.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, was brought by Starz against Disney's Buena Vista Television, which this year signed deals to sell movies on Apple's iTunes online store and Wal-Mart Stores' new movie download site."
Hollywood Reporter: "Music Publishers Sue XM Over Digital Copying":
"The suit, filed in federal court in New York by the National Music Publishers Assn., alleges that XM engages in massive copyright infringement through its subscription digital music download service known as XM + MP3.
According to the NMPA, the suit was filed after months of discussions between NMPA and XM regarding the satellite radio company's obligation to compensate creators fairly for the songs it distributes."
