By DANA BLANKENHORN
c.1995 Interactive Age
The out-of-court settlement of a lawsuit called Frank vs. CompuServe
could set the price for music downloads on the Web.
Spokeswoman Margaret O'Keefe of the National Music Publishers
Association, which announced the settlement Tuesday, told Interactive
Age Daily the settlement calls for a payment of 6.6 cents, the current
statutory mechanical rate, on all song downloads through CompuServe.
That rate, which is set by the government based on a formula every two
years, will rise to 6.9 cents in January, she added.
``That's the royalty,'' she added. ``What the services charge is up to
them. The royalty is paid on the use of the song'' by the service.
There's also a $568,000 one time payment to cover past downloads,
although CompuServe makes no admission of liability. The settlement is
due to be offered for the approval of U.S. District Court Judge John
F. Keenan on December 19, with each publisher being given the
opportunity to opt-out of the class prior to that. The suit involved
947 songs from 384 publishers.
What happens next, with the other commercial onliners and the hundreds
of Web sites now offering music using such tools as Progressive
Networks' RealAudio technology? ``We're hoping they'll come forward
now that this has been settled,'' said O'Keefe. Those who don't come
forward, however, face lawsuits. O'Keefe said there are heavy
penalties for copyright infringement.
The original lawsuit, filed in 1993 by Frank Music Corp. and supported
by The Harry Fox Agency, a subsidiary of the NMPA, charged that
CompuServe violated copyright laws when subscribers downloaded
``Unchained Melody'' and other recordings from CompuServe databases.
To learn more about the NMPA, click on their home page,
[3]http://www.nmpa.org
NYT-11-09-95 1204EST
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