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S. 2500, The Performance Rights Act
- This item is from the 110th Congress (2007-2008) and is no longer current. Comments, voting, and wiki editing have been disabled, and the cost/savings estimate has been frozen.
- This bill, or a similar bill, was reintroduced in the current Congress as S. 379, The Performance Rights Act.
Comparing revision saved on March 14, 2008, 04:07:27 (webmaster), with revision saved on July 30, 2008, 11:57:39 (webmaster):
S. 2500 would provide fair compensation to artists for use of their sound recordings.
== Detailed Summary ==
<summary>
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.
Provides that nothing in this Act shall adversely affect the public performance rights or royalties payable to songwriters or copyright owners of musical works.
</summary>
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== Status of the Legislation ==
<status>
Latest Major Action: 12/18/2007: Referred to7/29/2008: Senate committee.committee/subcommittee actions. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. Hearings held.
</status>
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== Points in Favor ==
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== Points Against ==
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Visitor Comments
Dan DeBruler
December 30, 2007, 2:36pm (report abuse)The unasked question around the Performance Rights Act “How much additional income will an artist actually receive?”
Out of the tens of thousands of recording artists who will conceivably be covered under the legislation, how can any artist expect to receive a fair share? As a radio station manager, I am asking for a closer look at the practicality of the Performance Rights Act, which will ultimately benefit the legal counsel and employees of the collection agency to a greater extent than it will any performing artist.
If the law passes, we will make every attempt to negotiate individual fees with artists we actually play. That would provide a fair share, and offer radio the opportunity to work out a “willing buyer, willing seller” agreement both parties could live with.
Tony
May 12, 2008, 9:03pm (report abuse)I fell that this bill is going to end free radio. the radio companies are not reporting great profits. I see that the amount of revenue generated looks like alot, but the cost to run a broadcast company must not be cheap. what is the profit of the broadcast companies. i will back this bill if the profits are great. Satellite radio charges there listener and this is why I feel that they should pay. Now on the other hand I don’t agree on internet stations having to pay, unless they are charging there listeners.
lauren
June 6, 2008, 2:46pm (report abuse)There is a problem with this bill that is quite obivious. The AFM-American Ferderation of musicians is mostly made up up session musicians so how does this bill benefit them? Are they considered artist underthis bill? If not then this bill for the most part will only benefit instrumentalists that do separate recording such as Victor Wooten. The rest that will benefit from this will be artist such as Faith Hill and others that only perform and do not write their music. If this is the case then this bil has to be revised.
Rudy
October 29, 2008, 1:48am (report abuse)Anybody knows what is the impact of this new bill to the ringback tone business of mobile operators?
thanks in advance for any enlightment,
Rudy