Live365 Asks Court to Examine Copyright Royalty Board

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 1, 2009 - 8:45am.

Washington - Online radio service Live365 announced on Tuesday that it has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to halt any further webcasting royalty rate-setting proceedings before the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), until the issue of whether the judges on the board were appointed in violation of the Constitution's separation of powers is resolved. The company points to recent opinions by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, including one that stated that the CRB "exercises expansive executive authority ... unsupervised by the Librarian of Congress or by any other Executive Branch official," adding that the "statutory structure raises a serious Constitutional issue."

Live365 argued that the issue should be resolved before it and other interested parties invest millions in presenting their cases before the CRB in new rate-setting proceedings.

"The constitutional issue is the elephant in the room at the CRB. Before any hard-earned artists' royalties and webcaster investments are spent on a potentially invalid royalty setting court, we are just requesting, for the benefit of all parties, to have this significant concern addressed and answered," said Mark Lam, CEO of Live365.

"We are hopeful to bring this issue before the Courts expeditiously and to have a decision before any more time and money is spent before the CRB."

http://www.live365.com