Featured Articles

Early Flap in Illinois Senate Race Reminds Broadcasters that They Cannot Censor Candidate Ad

December 29, 2009 16:24

The 2010 political broadcasting season is off to a fast start, with a controversy already erupting in connection with the Illinois Senate race to fill the seat once held by President Obama.  Illinois has one of the first primaries in the nation for the 2010 election, to be held on February 2,...

Copyright Royalty Board Requires Census Reporting for All Webcasters Except for Small Broadcasters

David Oxenford
October 14, 2009 02:14

The Copyright Royalty Board has ordered that most digital music services provide "census reporting" of all songs played by their service, along with other information including the number of listeners who heard each song each time it was played.  The decision, published in the...

Remember "Super Bowl", the "Olympics" and "March Madness" Are Trademarked Terms - Don't Use Them In Advertising Without Permission

January 27, 2010 02:23

With the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics less than 2 weeks away, and March Madness not far behind, we once again need to remind our readers that all three are trademarked terms, meaning that their use, particularly for commercial purposes, is limited.  We've wrote here last...

What is the Impact on Broadcasters of Supreme Court Decision that Corporations Can Buy Political Ads? More Money, More Ad Challenges and the Return of the Zapple Doctrine

January 22, 2010 14:40

The Supreme Court Decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, freeing corporations to use their corporate funds to take explicit positions on political campaigns, has been mostly analyzed by broadcast trade publications as a good thing - creating one more class of potential...

NAB Selects Gordon Smith as New President

David Oxenford
September 18, 2009 16:01

The NAB today announced that it has selected Gordon Smith, a former Republican Senator from Oregon, as its new President.  He succeeds David Rehr, who left the NAB last Spring.  Smith has been practicing law in Washington since leaving the Senate after being defeated in his...

Congressional Supporters of Performance Royalty Tell NAB to Negotiate With Music Industry - Will It Resolve Anything?

David Oxenford
November 05, 2009 03:30

This week, six Congressional supporters of the broadcast performance royalty wrote a letter calling upon the NAB to sit down with music industry representatives to reach a "negotiated resolution" of the "longstanding disagreement" in a session to last from November 17...

Copyright Royalty Board Sets Comment Date on Internet Radio Minimum Fee Settlement

January 06, 2010 06:58

Last year’s Court of Appeals decision on Internet radio royalties for 2006-2010 remanded one issue to the Copyright Royalty Board for further consideration – the issue of the minimum annual fee to be paid by each webcaster. The Copyright Royalty Judges (“CRJs”) had...

Stephen Colbert Olympics Coverage Explains Trademark Law

March 03, 2010 01:31

Getting legal education from a fake news program is always dangerous, but a recent episode of the Stephen Colbert Show, here, nicely demonstrated trademark law.  The clip illustrates what we have written before, that the term "Olympics", like "Super Bowl" and...

Warner Music Says No More Music for Streaming - What's It Mean for US Webcasters?

February 14, 2010 17:14

According to British press reports, Warner Music's CEO Edger Bronfman Jr. stated that it will cease making its music available to advertising supported streaming music sites.  This has prompted some questions about how this decision would affect services such as Pandora, Slacker,...

Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Broadcast Performance Royalty - With Issues Yet to Resolve

David Oxenford
October 15, 2009 23:42

The Senate Judiciary Committee today approved the bill to impose a performance royalty (or the "performance tax" as the NAB had called it) on radio broadcasters for the public performance of sound recordings on their over-the-air stations.  As was the case in the House of...