Today, Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced music licensing legislation that contains several proposals, some of which encourage a more fair market and others that would undermine competition in the music industry. The Fair Play Fair Pay Act proposes: requiring AM/FM broadcasters to pay sound recording royalties; setting statutory licenses under a “willing buyer, willing seller” standard;…

The announcement of the Canadian Government’s plan to extend copyright terms for sound recordings came as a surprise when it was released in Canada’s federal budget yesterday. The smooth stage management of the announcement has to be admired, accompanied as it was by pre-prepared soundbites from Canada’s music A-list extolling the benefits of this handout. In fact, with all the…

A New York Times series on secretive corporate lobbying of state attorneys general has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting today. The entire series does important digging on an area of political influence that’s generally less transparent than Congressional lobbying. But most relevant to EFF was the revelation last December—through emails revealed in last year’s high-profile Sony breach,…