Persevering with our collection highlighting objections to the proposed Phonorecords V settlement for mechanical royalties on bodily and everlasting downloads, our mates Helienne Lindvall, David Lowery, and Blake Morgan deal with a deceptively easy query: What’s the document that permits the Copyright Royalty Judges to conclude this settlement is cheap? Our mates don’t argue that settlement is improper—and even essentially that this settlement is unreasonable. As an alternative, they argue that Congress assigned the Judges, not the negotiating events, duty for figuring out whether or not a personal settlement gives an inexpensive foundation for charges imposed industry-wide. There’s simply no document aside from the NMPA’s settlement itself.
The remark additionally questions carrying the 12¢ Phonorecords IV benchmark ahead via one other five-year price interval just because it stays listed for inflation. CPI preserves the true worth of the prevailing benchmark; it doesn’t set up that the benchmark stays affordable for 2028–2032. With vertically built-in firms working on each side of the “settlement”, the commenters argue that the lacking financial document issues much more.
