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Dec. 4, 2003

ULM Professor Receives National Service Awards

Joel Willer, a University of Louisiana at Monroe assistant professor of mass communications, received awards from each of two national college media organizations for work in preserving Internet webcasting opportunities for college radio stations. College webcasters' continuing service had been threatened by the costs of new digital music copyright royalties created by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.
Willer's efforts included authoring written testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary; written comments to the House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property; lobbying visits to the offices of several members of both houses of Congress; multiple written filings to the Copyright Office of the U.S. Library of Congress; an appearance at a roundtable hearing conducted by the Copyright Office and at a subsequent status conference; and a written sworn declaration for a case currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit. He also participated on the team representing noncommercial entities in webcasting royalty negotiations with the Recording Industry Association of America, as authorized by Congress in the Small Webcaster Settlement Act of 2002.

College Media Advisers presented the Reid H. Montgomery Distinguished Service Award for work without which "many college stations' Internet presence -- for many of them their only presence -- would have been silenced." The award, originated in 1962 and last presented in 1997, is conferred to an individual or institution that has, in the judgment of the CMA Board of Director, made an outstanding contribution to collegiate media or media advising. Collegiate Broadcasters, Inc. also awarded a special commendation for Willer's work in securing an appropriate webcasting royalty scheme. Both presentations were made at the National College Media Convention in Dallas, Texas, which was held Nov. 5-9.

Willer additionally serves as the faculty supervisor for student-operated radio station KXUL at ULM.

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