Section 115 Reform Act of 2006

Bill introduced to US Congress
The Section 115 Reform Act of 2006 ("SIRA" or "S1RA") was a bill introduced June 8, 2006 in the 109th United States Congress by Howard Berman (California D) and Lamar Smith (Texas R) as part of It is one of several recent attempts to modify Section 115 of the United States Copyright Act to accommodate digital delivery of musical works. The S1RA would have met this need by providing for a blanket license for digital music providers. In 1995, Congress enacted the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act in response to emerging technologies and business structures which allowed listeners to legally stream or download sound recordings on their computers. The DPRA included digital music providers, such as Rhapsody, Pandora Music, and XM Radio, among those who could obtain a compulsory license to distribute copies of phonorecords. The licensure of digital music still remained somewhat ambiguous under the DPRA, but many believed that digital music providers were implicitly required to clear the rights of each individual song they made available. As early as 2001, the Copyright Office initiated discussions to amend section 115 to resolve ambiguities and streamline licensing for digital music providers.

If enacted, the S1RA would have provided for a blanket license for digital music providers to reproduce and distribute "general and incidental" digital copies of musical works, including cache, network, and RAM buffer copies. urged that the language of the bill implied that music consumers could be held liable for incidental copies created on their computers in the normal process of streaming, downloading, or playing the music they had purchased.

In November 2008, the U. S. Copyright Office announced the implementation of an interim regulation which would clarify the scope of section 115 for digital music providers. It has also been controversial. The copyright office has declined, in this interim regulation, to discuss whether RAM buffer copies and other incidental copies constitute copies under the meaning of the copyright act.