Opinion ID: 788880
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Minimum fee

Text: 33 The Owners next challenge the Librarian's selection of a $500 minimum fee for eligible non-subscription services. They contend that, in accepting the CARP's determination, the Librarian arbitrarily failed to consider the full range of minimum fees established in the licenses RIAA negotiated in the marketplace, or base the annual minimum fee on the RIAA-Yahoo! agreement. Accordingly, the Owners ask the court to modify the Librarian's decision by increasing the annual minimum fee to $5,000. Because the Librarian did not act in an arbitrary manner in determining the fee, we have no power to modify it. See 17 U.S.C. § 802(g). 34 After examining the marketplace agreements offered by RIAA, the CARP set the minimum fee based on the lowest value that RIAA had accepted in one of its prior agreements. See Final Rule, 67 Fed. Reg. at 45,262-63. This choice was not arbitrary, as the Librarian explained, because it comported with the CARP's understanding of the fee's purpose: to cover the license administrator's administrative costs and the value of access to all of the sound recordings up to the cost of the minimum fee. Id. at 45,262. As the Librarian observed, RIAA would not have negotiated a minimum fee that failed to cover at least its administrative costs and the value of access to all the works up to the cost of the minimum fee. Id. The Librarian therefore concluded, as the CARP had itself concluded, that $500 was the appropriate minimum fee because, [h]ad RIAA truly believed that the $500 minimum fee was inadequate to cover at least the administrative costs and the value of access, ... it would have required a higher fee. Id. at 45,263. Accordingly, because the Librarian plausibly explained his decision to adopt the CARP's $500 minimum fee, and because that determination bears a rational relationship to the record evidence, see NAB, 146 F.3d at 924, he did not act in an arbitrary manner in setting a $500 minimum license fee. See 17 U.S.C. § 802(g). 35