IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT NEWS: Radio Free America? Lawmakers move once again to require broadcasters to pay for licenses, (Feb 3, 2023)
By Matthew Hersh, J.D.
Over the air broadcasters have long paid music publishers, but not artists and their labels.
Radio broadcasters and the companies that own them have been getting a free ride for far too long under a longtime provision of the Copyright Act, a bipartisan group of Senators claim. The legislators, in reintroducing the American Music Fairness Act (S. 4932), raise once again an issue that has cleaved the music community for decades.
Under current law, terrestrial radio stations (such as AM and FM radio stations) are not required to pay per-performance royalties, although they must pay royalties to songwriters, usually through blanket licenses from performing rights organizations, such as BMI and ASCAP. Digital streaming services have been required to pay artists royalties, but the public performance right for sound recordings granted by Section 106(6) of the Copyright Act covers only digital audio transmissions.
The current legislation, which was introduced by Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), would remedy this disparity by removing the word “digital” from current law in order to assure that all radio broadcasters pay their sues. In a press release accompanying yesterday’s release of the bill, the two Senators noted the United States is currently the only democratic country in the world in which artists are not compensated for the use of their music on AM/FM radio. “By requiring broadcast radio corporations to pay performance royalties to creators for AM/FM radio plays,” the Senators contend, “the American Music Fairness Act would close an antiquated loophole that has allowed corporate broadcasters to forgo compensating artists for the use of their music for decades.”
The bill is cosponsored by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). Identical companion legislation (H.R. 4130) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressmen Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.).
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