Feds hand out Webcasting rules

The U.S. Copyright Office on Thursday released details about how Webcasters will pay royalties to record labels. The rules say that digital music services must compile and submit information such as the artist name, album title, and how many times the recording was transmitted to listeners.

In a nod to Webcasters, which had objected to some suggestions from the Recording Industry Association of America, the Copyright Office did not require reporting of the length of the recording and the release year. SoundExchange, a music industry group, reacted by criticizing the Copyright Office for not making its rules retroactive to 1998 and for not specifying exactly how the Webcasters' reports must be formatted.