■Today over at HB, Carmine initiated a new thread titled 'The American Music (Un)Fairness Act Trudges Ahead' that was quite intriguing, the current overview made me ask "what's he talking about?". So a search landed me on Congress.gov's 'H.R.791-118th Congress (2023-2024): American Music Fairness Act.' and below is a direct cut and paste of its contents - all three paragraphs - with interruptions by me, which are not particularly informative. I guess what I'm pointing to is the summary is authored by CRS- having no idea who that was, I proceed to find it's the 'Congressional Research Service', and I had no idea about that either, so..
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"The Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress works exclusively for the United States Congress, providing policy and legal analysis to committees and Members of both the House and Senate, regardless of party affiliation. CRS provides Congress with analysis that is authoritative, confidential, objective, and non-partisan."
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■ So, with who wrote it out of the way, let's proceed with the copy and paste from congress.govs page:
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"There is one summary for H.R.791. Bill summaries are authored by CRS.
Shown Here:
Introduced in House (02/02/2023)
American Music Fairness Act of 2023
This bill establishes that the copyright holder of a sound recording shall have the exclusive right to perform the sound recording through an audio transmission.
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■ I had to read that twice, then I read it again. It's such a striking statement, or at least it was to me. Maybe just me. It continues..
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(Currently, the public performance right only covers performances through a digital audio transmission in certain instances, which means that nonsubscription terrestrial radio stations generally do not have to get a license to publicly perform a copyright-protected sound recording.)
Under the bill, a nonsubscription broadcast transmission must have a license to publicly perform such sound recordings.
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■ I have to interrupt. Those two paragraphs clearly imply that subscription based broadcasts do not have to pay. Why not? It continues..
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'The Copyright Royalty Board must periodically determine the royalty rates for such a license. When determining the rates, the board must base its decision on certain information presented by the parties, including the radio stations' effect on other streams of revenue related to the sound recordings.
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■ You catch that? the rates to individual stations are also based on how it effects competing forms of use of the copyrighted music. That's striking too. It continues..
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Terrestrial broadcast stations (and the owners of such stations) that fall below certain revenue thresholds may pay certain flat fees, instead of the board-established rate, for a license to publicly perform copyright-protected sound recordings.
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■ You know that last paragraph (and it was the last paragraph) almost sounds like it's talking directly to us, which of course it's not, but in the case of BMI it is.. Like I said, this wasn't going to be informative, I guess I was documenting my morning wanderings that I thought as interesting, and that's about as far down this path as I'm going. Might be a good place for Artisian to pick up..
Oh, and this just in..