The United States International Trade Commission has agreed to investigate into the patent complaints filed by Apple against rival Nokia, in their ongoing litigation battle.
Starting last October, Nokia sued Apple over patents relating to technologies used in the iPhone. Apple then countersued, and eventually asked the ITC to step in. Apple is seeking an injunction on some Nokia products, and Nokia is looking for royalty payments, payments that will likely be in the hundreds of millions per year.
The ITC is already looking into Nokia’s claims.
Result for: royalty
Last week, A&T Food store shop assistant Sandra Burt was told by the Performing Right Society (PRS) that she needed to stop signing during work without a performance license or face a fine.
Today, Burt was given an apology letter as well as a bouquet of flowers by the royalty collection agency, a truce after facing extreme criticism around the UK for their move.
The situation started when Burt was playing a radio at work and the PRS sent a letter telling them they would need a license to continue to do so. After the radio was removed, Burt began singing on her own.
Says Burt to the BBC: “I would start to sing to myself when I was stacking the shelves just to keep me happy because it was very quiet without the radio. When I heard that the PRS said I would be prosecuted for not having a performance license, I thought it was a joke and started laughing. I was then told I could be fined thousands of pounds. But I couldn’t stop myself singing. They would need to put a plaster over my mouth to get me to stop, I can’t help it.”
The apology letter reads:
“We’re very sorry we made a big mistake. We hear you have a lovely singing voice and we wish you good luck.”
Result for: royalty
Last week PRS for Music, the UK performance royalty collection organization, announced revenue for terrestrial broadcasts and internet streaming in the first half of 2009 was down 6 percent from last year.
PRS for Music collects royalties for close to 60,000 songwriters and music publishers.
An official statement blames “phasing of revenues” for lower than expected earnings, but conveniently doesn’t mention the loss of income from YouTube earlier this year. In March, while PRS for Music was renegotiating royalty rates with YouTube, the world’s biggest online video service began blocking access to most music videos for UK viewers.
At one point last year YouTube was reportedly responsible for 40 percent of PRS members’ video plays. It’s hard to imagine that the loss of their royalty payments since March wasn’t a major contributor to the revenue decrease.
In May PRS for Music announced new streaming royalty rates, which took effect at the beginning of this month.
The per stream minimum dropped substantially, which should help smaller webcasters. At the same time the basic rate increased to 10.5 percent of revenue from 8 percent.
