CSUSA Mid-Winter Meeting 2015

Inaugural Meeting of CSUSA’s International Chapter

Focus on Music Licensing in Europe and North America

Featuring a roster of expert speakers from Europe, Canada, and the U.S., the program will begin with lunch, followed by a panel and audience discussion. We will then hold a brief business meeting to discuss future plans for the chapter. Lunch will be provided.

Cost: $35 (includes lunch)

Panelists:
Alexander Wolf, SOLAR Music Rights Management
Frank Scibilia, Pryor Cashman LLP
Ryan Lehning, SoundExchange
Gilles Daigle, Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN)
Casey Chisick, Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP
Dr. Martin Schaefer, Boehmert & Boehmert

CSUSA Executive Committee Board Meeting

Registration & Information Desk Open

Welcome Reception & Songwriters in the Round
With Roger Cook, Brett James and Dave Turnbull

Join us for a Nashville-style “in-the-round” session with three of Music City’s premier songwriters. Roger, Brett and Dave will not only perform their hit songs but also tell us how those works came to be, letting us in on their creative process. The performance will include a reception with beverages and hors d’oeuvres. Guest tickets available!

Roger Cook’s songwriting credits include “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony),” “I Just Want to Dance with You,” “Love Is on a Roll,” “One Night At A Time,” “Talking in Your Sleep” and many others. Among the artists who have recorded his works are George Strait, Crystal Gayle, Elton John, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Bing Crosby, Neil Diamond and Bonnie Raitt.

Brett James has written songs for Carrie Underwood (including “Jesus, Take The Wheel,” winner of the 2006 Grammy for Best Country Song), Kenny Chesney, Jessica Andrews, Martina McBride, Uncle Kracker, Paulina Rubio and other hit performers.

Dave Turnbull’s hits include “Lucky Man” (Montgomery Gentry), “The More I Drink” (Blake Shelton), “If Something Should Happen” (Darryl Worley), “That’s Why” (Craig Morgan), and “Marry For Money” and “Arlington” (both Trace Adkins).

Continental Breakfast

Registration & Information Desk Open

Opening Remarks
Eric J. Schwartz, CSUSA President

Panel 1
Copyright Reform – Overview, Insights and Perspectives on “The Great New Copyright Act”

About three years ago, Maria Pallante, the Register of Copyrights, introduced the phrase “The Next Great New Copyright Act.” Since then, the Copyright Office, the USPTO, the Justice Department, and Congress, have expended significant resources and energy trying to determine what would be the substance and scope of such an Act. This panel will provide an update on the complex process, a review of the stakeholders involved, and most importantly the political dynamics and legislative maneuvering that may or may not get us to the “The Next Great Copyright Act.”

Moderator:
Jay Rosenthal, National Music Publishers’ Association

Panelists:
David Carson, U.S. Patent & Trademark Office
Karyn Temple Claggett, U.S. Copyright Office
Bart Herbison, Nashville Songwriters Association International

Panel 2
Pre-1972 Sound Recordings

Are sound recordings subject to the public performance right under state common law or only for streaming under 17 USC 114? Do the safe harbor rules under the DMCA apply to pre-1972 sound recordings? What impact might these have on the federalization of those recordings? An examination of the cases being litigated by the Turtles and other against Sirius/XM and Pandora in state courts.

Moderator:
Chris Horsnell, Milom Horsnell Crow Rose Kelley, PLC

Panelists:
Russ Frackman, Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, LLC
Victor Jih, O’Melveny & Myers, LLP
Colin Rushing, SoundExchange

Coffee Break

Panel 3
Visual Works and the Elusive Exclusive Right
To Display

The ability to license images for commercial and editorial purposes is an essential economic factor for individual photographers and other visual artists, as well as those image aggregators that connect the works of these visual artists to a vast array of users such as media publishers, advertisers, web designers, documentary film makers and broadcasters to name just a few. While images are used more than ever to illustrate ever growing digital media environment, fair use, image framing, embedding and unlicensed uses account for more online and digital uses than licensed uses. Beginning with Kelly v. Arriba Soft, thumbnail size images were considered a fair use when used as part of image search. Larger high resolution use of images that were framed by Google were not considered copyright infringement by the 9^th Circuit relying on a newly minted server test in Perfect 10 v. Google. Getty Images recently permitted the embedding of many of its image collection for non-commercial use but objected to a Bing widget that allowed images to be embedded in websites directly from other websites, rather than from the source. Pinterest allows users to “pin” images to bulletin boards. Have image owners lost the right to monetize and control the right to display images once they are online? Do image owners really have the exclusive rights provided by the Copyright Act to publicly display or with video to publicly broadcast the work, and do we meet our WIPO obligations to provide authors with a right to make their work available? How is this right to make available for works online being looked at in the EU level?

Moderator:
Nancy Wolff, Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams, Sheppard, LLP

Panelists:
Lizanne Vaughan, Getty Images, Inc.
Linda Steinman, Davis Wright Tremaine
Andrew Pequignot, The Moore Firm, LLC / Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP

Hutton Hotel

Panel 4
The State of PROs and Collective Licensing

State of play and likely future with regard to ASCAP and BMI consent decrees and SESAC antitrust litigation.

Moderator:
Frank P. Scibilia, Pryor Cashman LLP

Panelists:
Vincent Candilora, ASCAP
Ryan Lehning, Sound Exchange
Dennis Lord, SESAC
Tucker McCrady, Greenberg Traurig, LLP

Lunch

Free Time

Shuttle Bus Pick-Up to Reception

 Continental Breakfast

Panel 1
Preservation of Sound Recordings
and Film Materials


Preservation of Sound Recordings and Film Materials:  In recent years, two Library of Congress advisory boards have produced landmark studies on issues (including copyright law) pertaining to the preservation and access of recorded sound and film materials. Regarding preservation and access, public (and private) libraries, archives, museums and collectors of culturally and historically important materials are underfunded and overwhelmed by technical and funding issues that make retention of materials, (digital) copying and cataloging of them, much less making them available in accordance with copyright laws, very challenging. One Library of Congress study found that only 14% of all commercially issued recordings prior to 1964 are legally available in the U.S. in any format or mode of distribution; another found that less than half of the feature films produced before the middle of the last century survive at all.

This panel will discuss and demonstrate some archival successes and challenges featuring two experts, one on production and engineering (legendary music producer George Massenburg) and the other on curation (Alan Stoker, Curator of the Country Music Hall of Fame, responsible for one of the most important collections of recorded music in the world). The panel will discuss the ways in which fair use, library and archival uses (section 108), and copyright rights and duration impact preservation and access issues.

Moderator:
Eric J. Schwartz, Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP,
CSUSA President

Panelist:
George Massenburg, George Massenburg Labs

Coffee Break

Panel 2
Recent Copyright Developments

A discussion of 2-3 significant recent copyright decisions and pending cases, including a discussion of authorship in view of the Innocence of Muslims case, the Oscar “selfie” and the new Compendium.

“Copyright Reform & The Copyright Office”