Copyright Royalty Board

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) is "a U.S. system of three Copyright Royalty Judges who determine rates and terms for copyright statutory licenses and make determinations on distribution of statutory license royalties collected by the United States Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. The Board, made up of three permanent copyright royalty judges, was created under the Copyright Royalty and Distribution Reform Act of 2004, which became effective on 31 May 2005, phasing out the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel system."

CRB Judges
"On January 11, 2006, Librarian of Congress Dr. James H. Billington appointed three copyright royalty judges... who oversee the copyright law’s statutory licenses, which permit qualified parties to use multiple copyrighted works without obtaining separate licenses from each copyright owner."

"Among other duties, the Judges are responsible for determining and adjusting the rates and terms of the statutory licenses and determining the distribution of royalties from the statutory license royalty pools that the Library of Congress administers."

The "the first three judges shall serve two-, four- and six-year terms in order to establish a cycle that avoids replacing all three CRJs at the same time.


 * William J. Roberts (two-year term)
 * James Scott Sledge, Chief Judge (six-year term)
 * Stanley C. Wisniewski (four-year term)

Contact information
Copyright Royalty Board P.O. Box 70977 Washington DC 20024-0977 Phone: 202 707-7658 Web: http://www.loc.gov/crb/ Web: http://www.copyright.gov/crj/

Related SourceWatch articles

 * digital copyright

General information

 * "Governing Laws", CRB.

External articles

 * David Oxenford, "Copyright Royalty Board Releases Decision - Rates are Going Up Significantly," Broadcasting Law Blog, March 2, 2007.
 * David Oxenford, "More on the Copyright Royalty Board Decision on Internet Radio Music Royalties," Broadcasting Law Blog, March 3, 2007.
 * Olga Karif, "The Last Days of Internet Radio? A decision by the Copyright Royalty Board to raise royalty fees could put some small online radio stations out of business," BusinessWeek, March 7, 2007.
 * Scott Bradner, "The copyright industry's royalty board," Network World, March 12, 2007.
 * Anne Broache, "Internet radio to go silent on June 26?" c|net News Blog, June 21, 2007.
 * Farhad Manjoo, "Web radio stations win a last-minute stay of execution," Machinist Blog/Salon, July 13, 2007.
 * Evan Serpick, "Public Outcry Staves Off Destruction of Internet Radio," Rolling Stone, July 13, 2007.
 * Sam Diaz, "Web Radio: 48 Hours to Black Sunday," Post I.T.Blog/Washington Post, July 14, 2007.