PERFORMANCE RIGHTS ACT '09 Is This The End Of College Radio?

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The SOUND RECORDING PERFORMANCE RIGHTS ACT FOR TERRESTRIAL RADIO H.R.4789 passed the House of Representatives on May 13, 2009.

Performance Rights Act – Amends federal copyright law to:
(1) Grant performers of sound recordings equal rights to compensation from terrestrial broadcasters;
(2) Establish a flat annual fee in lieu of payment of royalties for individual terrestrial broadcast stations with gross revenues of less than $1.25 million and for non-commercial, public broadcast stations;
(3) Grant an exemption from royalty payments for broadcasts of religious services and for incidental uses of musical sound recordings; and
(4) Grant terrestrial broadcast stations that make limited feature uses of sound recordings a per program license option.

Any single track of recorded music consists of 2 copyrights.

There is a copyright in the written words and music (the “musical composition”), which is typically held by the songwriter or their publisher.

There is a copyright in any recording of the composition (the “sound recording”), which is typically held by the performing artist or their label.

What the Performance Rights Act is proposing is that the owners of the sound recording start receiving payment for the use of their art. Prior to 1995 performers could not receive ANY remuneration for their art, then Sound Exchange started collecting for Internet radio, Satellite radio and Cable radio plays and artists who had not seen any money in years from their publishers or labels started seeing renewed checks.

We are now talking about paying recording artist direct for their contributions to the BILLIONS of dollars in revenue radio stations have all ready collected.

This is not the end of Black radio.

This is not the end of free on air time for non-profit organizations.

This is not the reason for firing announcers and other radio station people.

This is a call for station owners to become more attuned to their community needs, develop consistent sales programs that develop better usage of their staffs, stop doing business the way it was done years ago and step into the future. I find it really strange that the people speaking out the most against the Performance Act either work for a major radio network or have refused to embrace the new technological changes now available for supplementary revenue formation.

Interestingly enough radio stations outside of the United States have been paying publishing fees AND performance fees for years and it has grown there business.

RIGHTS ACT '09 Is This The End Of Minority or College or Independent Community Radio Stations?

National Association of Broadcasting says this will merely end to be a taxation on radio stations I disagree.
Is this a bill in effect trying to end internet radio I also disagree.

College and minority radio stations I believe won't be affected by this is about the artist getting compensation for performance acts which in other countries they already get paid. Just another added revenue stream for these struggling artists, many artists today mainly gain revenues through touring which generate merchandise sales etc.

Ever wonder why so many bands are consantly touring for months on end just make ends meet?

Peace