Lawyers and copyright enthusiasts, here's a post for you.

IP lawyer Joshua Wattles has a guest post at the Patry Copyright Blog about compulsory licensing and its need for reform. He feels the Copyright Act needs more participation, not streamlining.

First, if you are going to throw in the towel on making an open, free market deal and use the government to impose one, then the government should be a continuing party in interest and not just a rental hall where the negotiation takes place. The DOJ should be in every compulsory license proceeding with the brief to protect the commercial fairness of the outcome. Second, the people should be openly invited too. Of course, it’s so crushingly boring the public would never come, so the FTC should be in every proceeding as well with the brief of representing the interests of end-use consumers.

Wattles goes on to explain why and how the DOJ and FTC should be part of the hearing process. The FTC, he writes, should be there to represent consumer groups who cannot be expected to organize for emerging markets. The presence of the DOJ, he argues, would help mitigate a process that is "by definition anti-competitive in origin," among other reasons.

More reading on collective licensing:

• A January 2008 article at Ars Technica that recaps a Consumer Electronics Show panel discussion on copyright reform.
• A March 2005 Billboard op-ed by Les Watkins from Music Reports, Inc. "A wiser move by the indie music publishers would be to lobby for the authorization of one or more agencies in addition to HFA to bring the benefits of competition to Section 115 royalty collection."
• A June 2005 post at the Legislating IP blog with a good discussion (and links to more blog discussion) on the statutory compulsory license for making and distributing phonorecords of non-dramatic musical works.
• The US Copyright Office's page for Mechanical and Digital Phonorecords Delivery Compulsory License.