The Section 115 Reform Act of 2006 ("SIRA" or "S1RA") was a

bill Bill(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States) * Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature * Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer * Bill, a bird or animal's beak Plac ...

introduced June 8, 2006 in the

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Howard Berman Howard Lawrence Berman (born April 15, 1941) is an American attorney and retired politician who served as a U.S. representative from California from 1983 to 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented the state's 26th congressional ...

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California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

- D) and

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- R) as part of ().Section 115 Reform Act of 2006, H.R. 5553
109th Cong. (2006). It is one of several recent attempts to modify Section 115 of the United States Copyright Act to accommodate digital delivery of musical works. This bill was never enacted and thereby expired.

Content

The central aim of the SIRA was to provide "legitimate digital music services with an efficient way to clear all the rights they eedto make large numbers of musical works quickly available by an ever-evolving number of digital means while ensuring that the copyright holders are fairly compensated." The S1RA would have met this need by providing for a blanket license for digital music providers.

Background

Section 115 of the United States Copyright Act outlines the scope of compulsory licenses for making and distributing

phonorecord A phonorecord is defined by the United States Copyright Act of 1976 to be a material object that embodies sounds (other than those accompanying audio-visual recordings such as movies). From the Copyright Act: “Phonorecords” are material objec ...

s. Once a phonorecord of a nondramatic musical work has been distributed to the public, any other person, subject to certain conditions, may obtain a compulsory license to make or distribute copies of the work. In 1995, Congress enacted the

Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act The Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995 (DPRA) is a United States Copyright law that grants owners of a copyright in sound recordings an exclusive right “to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital au ...

in response to emerging technologies and business structures which allowed listeners to legally stream or download sound recordings on their computers. The DPRA included digital music providers, such as

Rhapsody Rhapsody may refer to: * A work of epic poetry, or part of one, that is suitable for recitation at one time ** Rhapsode, a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry Computer software * Rhapsody (online music service), an online m ...

Pandora Music Pandora is a subscription-based music streaming service owned by Sirius XM Holdings based in Oakland, California, United States. The service carries a focus on recommendations based on the "Music Genome Project" — a means of classifying indiv ...

, and

XM Radio XM Satellite Radio (XM) was one of the three satellite radio (SDARS) and online radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM, Sirius XM Holdings. It provided pay-for-service radio, analogous to subscription cable televisi ...

, among those who could obtain a compulsory license to distribute copies of phonorecords. The licensure of digital music still remained somewhat ambiguous under the DPRA, but many believed that digital music providers were implicitly required to clear the rights of each individual song they made available.Fred von Lohmann,
Season of Bad Laws, Part 4: Music Services Sell Out Fair Use
', DeepLinks (Jun. 4, 2006). As early as 2001, the Copyright Office initiated discussions to amend section 115 to resolve ambiguities and streamline licensing for digital music providers.

Opposition

"Incidental Copies"

If enacted, the S1RA would have provided for a blanket license for digital music providers to reproduce and distribute "general and incidental" digital copies of musical works, including

cache Cache, caching, or caché may refer to: Places United States * Cache, Idaho, an unincorporated community * Cache, Illinois, an unincorporated community * Cache, Oklahoma, a city in Comanche County * Cache, Utah, Cache County, Utah * Cache Count ...

, network, and

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * Ra ...

buffer copies. Critics of the S1RAGigi Sohn,
Now the Fun Starts: Music Licensing, Orphan Works and The Copyright Modernization Act of 2006
'', Public Knowledge Policy Blog (Sep. 11, 2006).Jake Fisher,

' IPac (Jun. 5, 2006). urged that the language of the bill implied that music consumers could be held liable for incidental copies created on their computers in the normal process of streaming, downloading, or playing the music they had purchased.

"Distributions"

Critics of the SIRA argued that the language of the bill incorrectly conflated "transmissions", such as interactive streams, with "distributions". It was argued that this conflation could unfairly limit the

Fair Use Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...

right of music consumers to engage in legal home-taping, and the rights of digital music providers to make and distribute recording devices which could encourage home-taping. Both home-taping and the distribution of home-taping devices are legal in the United States under of the Copyright Act and under the

Audio Home Recording Act The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA) amended the United States copyright law by adding Chapter 10, "Digital Audio Recording Devices and Media". The act enabled the release of recordable digital formats such as Sony and Philips' Digital Audi ...

of 1992.

Recent Proposals to Reform Section 115

In November 2008, the U.S. Copyright Office announced the implementation of an interim regulation which would clarify the scope of section 115 for digital music providers. It has also been controversial. The copyright office has declined, in this interim regulation, to discuss whether RAM buffer copies and other incidental copies constitute copies under the meaning of the copyright act.Copyright Office
Interim rule and request for comments, Compulsory License for Making and Distributing Phonorecords, Including Digital Phonorecord Deliveries
73 Fed. Reg. 217, 66,173 (Nov. 7, 2008).

References

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External links

US Copyright Office statementEFF discussion of SIRA
– Boing Boing United States proposed federal intellectual property legislation Music licensing