Bob Phillips, chief executive officer of the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC), urged Congress Thursday to revise the copyright laws that govern satellite television.
In testimony before the House Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual
Property, Phillips cited examples of copyright regulations such as the
arbitrary 90-day waiting period for network service, the indistinct “Grade B'' signal intensity standard, and the higher copyright fees imposed on satellite TV. “From rural America's perspective, the current copyright rules are — in a word — ridiculous,'' said Phillips.
“The nation's copyright laws should make sense to consumers, and they
should be consistent with our nation's pro-competitive telecommunications
policies,'' Phillips said. “Satellite carriers should not be required to pay higher royalty fees than cable operators for the same programming. Nor should satellite carriers be blocked unnecessarily from providing programming to subscribers who wish to receive it and are willing to pay a surcharge for it.''
As part of its oversight hearings on “Copyright Licensing Regimes Covering
Retransmission of Broadcast Signals,'' the subcommittee today heard testimony on a decision by the Librarian of Congress to raise the copyright royalty fees that satellite carriers must pay for network and superstation signals. Satellite carriers now pay 1,000 percent more than the average cable system pays for the same distant network signals.
Speaking on behalf of NRTC's members and affiliates who provide satellite
programming services to more than 800,000 rural Americans, Phillips told the
subcommittee that:
