Lawmakers Planning Bills On Contracts, Digital Rights

Federal and state legislators are upping the pressure on the music industry to improve its fairness practices with a series of proposed bills targeting everything from artists' contracts to digital distribution.

At the Future of Music Coalition policy summit yesterday in Washington, D.C., Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) said he plans to introduce legislation designed to limit laws that make circumventing secure digital content a criminal offense. The bill is intended to ease the restrictions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, allowing for broader fair-use rights. Boucher cited the work of Princeton professor Edward Felten, who faced heat from the RIAA over the presentation of his research on circumventing music watermarking technologies, as an example of fair use.

Meanwhile, California State Sen. Kevin Murray (D-L.A.) told attendees he intends to introduce legislation that would repeal the exemption for recording artists in California's "seven-year statute." The exemption to the statute-which limits the amount of time an individual can be held to a personal-services contract-allows record companies to recover damages for undelivered albums.

A group of nine label CEOs, including the heads of the majors, have sent a letter to Murray and other California legislators opposing the bill. "Artists should not be able to walk away from the commitments they have made without any liability for damages," says the letter, which adds that repeal of the exemption would "create a competitive disadvantage" for California's recording industry, jeopardizing jobs and "prospects of thousands of California workers."

Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), who will deliver today's keynote address at the summit, is expected to announce his plan to introduce an artist-rights bill that would call for congressional hearings to examine the seven-year statute.

Boucher told Bulletin he will support Conyers. "I question the fairness of a statute that provides for unequal treatment of screen actors and recording artists," Boucher said.

Conyers' bill is also expected to call for direct payment of digital royalties to artists, beyond those offered by the industry's SoundExchange program.