We have an effective government, but not an efficient one, or even one that moves very fast.

Some legal questions are answered only by the courts, and some legal questions are answered by various government departments. The Recording Industry Association of America collects certain royalties for sound recordings, and ASCAP collects other royalties, and BMI collects others, ...

Recently, the RIAA asked the Copyright Office to rule on whether the RIAA or another group should be collecting royalites for ringtones. The question was phrased as to which aspect of Copyright law the royalties for ringtones fell under. Yesterday, the Copyright Office declared (and courts are supposed to treat this as a settled legal question) that the RIAA collects those royalties under a section of Copyright law that limits how much those royalties can be. The good news is that ringtones may come down in cost. The bad news is that the RIAA got a little stronger.

UPDATE Oops. That second link was supposed to be different from the first. It's fixed now.