Section 109 Report to Congress

\12\ One company recently petitioned the FCC to declare that the Commission has no authority to regulate the distribution of video content over the Internet. See Network2 Petition for Declaratory Ruling That Internet Video is not Subject to Regulation Under Title III or Title VI of the Communications Act, filed March 20, 2007. The Petition did not raise for comment whether Internet video programming distributors may still avail themselves of the statutory licenses under the Copyright Act.

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In the absence of the statutory licenses, cable operators, satellite carriers, and copyright owners would have to negotiate the rights to carry programs according to marketplace rates, terms, and conditions. As stated earlier, cable operators and satellite carriers have successfully negotiated the right to carry local television broadcast signals of the major broadcast networks under the retransmission consent provisions found in Section 325 of the Communications Act. We seek comment on whether we should recommend to Congress that Sections 111 and 119 be repealed and superceded by Section 325 so that distant broadcast stations can freely negotiate signal carriage rights with cable operators and satellite carriers without reference to a statutory license.\13\ Could retransmission consent perform the same payment functions as Section 111 and Section 119? In other words, is there any way a retransmission consent agreement can be structured so that the monetary value of the underlying content is collected by broadcast stations and then paid to the copyright owners of the programs that are retransmitted? Is there any reason why retransmission consent would not work for the retransmission of distant television signals? Are there any contractual impediments, such as network-station affiliation arrangements, that would preclude the retransmission of distant television signals under a privately negotiated agreement? Are there any legal impediments, such as the FCC's network non-duplication rules, that would frustrate private agreements? Is it difficult for small cable operators to negotiate the rights necessary to carry the signals of distant television stations? Would the elimination of the statutory licenses cause harm to cable or satellite subscribers? If so, how? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

\13\ One cable operator appears to advocate the replacement of retransmission consent with a new statutory license covering the cable retransmission of local broadcast television signals. See Ted Hearn, Willner Calls for Tax to Aid TV Stations, Multichannel News, March 13, 2007 (Insight Communications CEO Michael Willner has proposed a ``TV tax'' to replace retransmission consent that would fund a ``federal royalty pool'' ``similar to the one used to compensate sports leagues and Hollywood studios''). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

III. CONCLUSION

We hereby seek comment from the public on the legal and factual matters identified herein associated with the retention, reform, or elimination of Sections 111, 119, and 122 of the Copyright Act. If there are any additional issues not discussed above, we encourage interested parties to bring those matters to our attention.

Dated: April 11, 2007 Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights. [FR Doc. E7-7207 Filed 4-13-07; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 1410-30-S