The public performance rights bill i wrote about here was introduced into congress last week. Choice quotes include ” Our ignorance of intellectual property rights on this issue is a worldwide embarrassment and it must end now,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), a co-sponsor of the House bill.”

Calling it a “record label bailout” is tacky and embarassing to all involved, though.

more here

The articles are a trifle hard to grasp, so I’ll explain what’s going on in layman’s terms.  Under the current US copyright scheme, each song has two separate copyrights – the composition and the sound recording.  The composition copyright is held by the songwriter.  The sound recording copyright is the protection afforded to the performer(s) of the underlying composition.  Let’s take Baby, One More Time for example.  Britney Spears didn’t write the song.  Some dude named Martin Sandberg did.  Thus, Sandberg owns the composition copyright.  Britney (or more specifically, her record label) owns the Sound Recording copyright.  Under the current licensing scheme.  They both get paid whenever someone buys a copy of the song.  However, only Sandberg gets paid when the song gets played on the radio.

The original logic behind this concept was that radio was nothing more than a promotional vehicle and wasn’t making enough money to recoup double.  Nowadays, though, this is CLEARLY not the case. As the variety article points out, there are tons of stations that are based entirely around old catalogs of tunes.  Clearly the Who’s Tommy needs no more promotion at this juncture.  By the same token, internet broadcasters are all paying performance royalties despite the fact that they’re barely squeaking out a profit.  Clearly there’s a discrepancy here.

Broadcasters are obviously not fans of this new proposition, since it will basically siphon about $500 million in revenue away from them and back to the record labels.  They’ll argue that they’re getting hit just as hard in the economy (Clear channel just laid off close to 2000 people).  The reality is, though, that there’s no reason for this scheme to exist any more.  It’s one of a multitude of copyright issues that no longer stand up in the 21st century.

It seems like the Recording Industry is turning over a bit of a new leaf to start 2009.  They’re finally using their strength to get PROACTIVE things done in congress.  Suing file sharers was basically the modern equivalent of a jaywalking ticket.  They didn’t win a single case, spent tons of dough, and saw nothing but a decline in their market share because of it.  The future of music is in licensing.  But that’s a post for another day.  If you want a more intellectual view of this whole performance royalty thing, I encourage you to check out John Kettle’s law review article on the subject. Kettle was my professor in law school and largely got me to the point I’m at now.  It’s a bit dated but still very relevant to the subject at hand.

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