performing rights organization

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The Copyright Royalty Board on Friday published in the Federal Register its decision setting the royalty rates that noncommercial broadcasters will pay to the performing rights organizations for the public performance of musical compositions in over-the-air broadcasting during the period 2018-2022.  The rates reflect settlements between ASCAP, BMI and SESAC and various organizations representing…

Last week, I participated in a discussion about music royalties for broadcasters at the Texas Association of Broadcasters Annual Convention in Austin. Speaking on the panel with me were the heads of the Radio Music License Committee and the TV Music Licensing Committee. These are the organizations that represent most commercial broadcasters in their negotiations with ASCAP, BMI and SESAC for public performance licenses for “musical works” or “musical compositions” – the underlying words and music to any song. In our discussion, there was a general summary of the licenses needed for the use of music by broadcasters, a summary of the status of some of the current royalty negotiations, and questions about other issues in music licensing. As this discussion raised a number of issues that I have covered in articles posted on this blog, I thought that it might be worth highlighting some of that past coverage so that those interested in any topic can read a bit more on these subjects.

The TV industry seems to have far fewer issues than radio, perhaps because radio is so much more music-dependent. While there is music in many TV programs, some of it is cleared (i.e. licenses have been negotiated) by the program providers (including some networks), so that stations need only worry about licenses for programming where the music has not been pre-cleared. Thus, TV stations have alternatives of blanket licenses for all programming (principally used by affiliates of networks where music has not been pre-cleared) or per-program fees where stations pay for music only in programs or program segments where music has not been licensed by the program suppliers.
Continue Reading Looking at Music Royalty Issues for Radio and TV Broadcasters

Global Music Rights, commonly known as GMR, is the newest Performing Rights Organization (PRO) in the US music business, licensing public performance rights to musical compositions of songwriters as diverse as various members of the Eagles to Pharrell Williams to George Gershwin. As we wrote here, in December, they offered a temporary license to the radio industry to allow radio stations to play their music if the stations pay a royalty reportedly based on a percentage of what stations pay to ASCAP and BMI. That license, which was accepted by many radio stations, expires at the end of September. Many stations were concerned as to what would happen on October 1, and whether they could continue to play GMR music. This week, that question was answered when it was announced that GMR has offered to extend the license for another 6 months at the same rates stations are now paying.

While this extension may answer the question of what happens on October 1, it certainly does not resolve all GMR issues. It seems pretty clear that, unless there is a major breakthrough, GMR and the Radio Music License Committee (the organization that negotiates performance royalties for commercial radio operators) will not come to an agreement on rates before the end of September. As we wrote here, RMLC has sued GMR, asking that a court make them subject to an antitrust consent decree much like SESAC where rates, if they cannot be voluntarily negotiated, would be set through arbitration (see our article on the results of the recent RMLC-SESAC arbitration here). GMR has countersued (see our article here), and litigation continues as it may well for years absent a settlement.
Continue Reading GMR Offers Commercial Radio 6 Month Extension of Interim License to Play Their Songs

Commercial radio broadcasters have been seeing numerous communications over the last week about Global Music Rights (GMR) and its seemingly contentious music royalty negotiations with the Radio Music License Committee (RMLC). Many stations are confused about this controversy and what it is all about. The 5 questions below, and the links at the end of the questions, try to shed some light on the issues. Stations need to carefully consider their options, and seek advice where necessary, to determine what they will do by January 31 with respect to the interim license that GMR has offered to stations. The questions below hopefully provide some background on these issues.

 What is GMR and why isn’t the music they represent covered by the other organizations like BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC?

 GMR is a new performing rights organization. Like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, they represent songwriters and collect royalties from music users for the public performance of these songwriter’s compositions. They will collect not just from radio, but from all music users – they have already reached out to business music services that provide the music played in retail stores, restaurants and other businesses and no doubt have or will license other companies that make music available to the public. Most songwriters represented by GMR used to be represented by ASCAP or BMI, but these songwriters have withdrawn from ASCAP and BMI and joined GMR, allegedly to attempt to increase the amounts that they are paid for the use of the songs that they have written. For radio, these withdrawals became effective on January 1 of this year, when the old license agreements between ASCAP and BMI and the commercial radio industry expired.

What does a station need to, in order to protect itself while negotiations are going on?

Because the penalties for playing a song without a license can be as much at $150,000 per song, stations either need to purge all GMR music from their stations or sign a license agreement with GMR. If you decide to purge their music from your stations, don’t forget about music that may appear in commercials or syndicated programming. Also remember that we are talking about the musical composition, not the recording of the song by any particular band or singer. Even the broadcast of a high school band playing a GMR song at half time of some football game, or the broadcast of a local middle school choral concert, could trigger the royalty obligation to GMR.
Continue Reading Background on the GMR/RMLC Dispute – 5 Questions on the Basics of the Controversy

There is now a vacancy in the top position at the Copyright Office, the Register of Copyrights, and the Librarian of Congress, who appoints the Register, has asked for comments on the role and qualifications for the new Register. These comments are due by January 31, 2017. While setting copyright law has…

On Saturday, RMLC announced that it has reached an “interim” agreement with the new performing rights organization Global Music Rights (GMR) for a license to perform musical compositions controlled by GMR.  This agreement (available on the RMLC website here) is an interim agreement for radio stations that elect to participate, and covers only the first 9 months of 2017.  To be covered by this license, a station must make an election by January 31, and pay the first month’s assessment to GMR by that date.  GMR has promised not to sue any stations in January while stations are deciding whether to opt into this agreement.  The amount to be paid by any individual station can be ascertained by communicating with GMR at an email address furnished by the RMLC in the notice distributed on Saturday.

This is an interim agreement as it removes the threat of a lawsuit for playing GMR music after January 1 that could potentially be faced by any radio station that does not have a license.  The rates paid by any station that opts in could be adjusted retroactively, up or down, based on the results of further negotiations between RMLC and GMR, or based on the results of the lawsuits currently being litigated between the two (see our article here on RMLC’s suit against GMR, and the article here about GMR’s follow-up lawsuit against RMLC, each accusing the other of violating the antitrust laws).  It would seem obvious that RMLC believes that the amounts being paid under this interim deal are higher than justified based on the percentage of music played by radio stations that is controlled by GMR.  If it was believed that the interim fee represented a fair price, then it would seem that RMLC would have entered into a permanent license at these rates – but instead the litigation continues.  What is a station to do?
Continue Reading GMR and RMLC Agree to Interim License for Commercial Radio Stations – Providing 9 Months to Reach Final Deal for Public Performance of Musical Compositions

ASCAP and the Radio Music License Committee (RMLC) announced yesterday that they have reached an agreement for the period 2017-2021, setting the performance royalties that commercial broadcasters will pay for the use of music written by composers who are represented by ASCAP. The press release issued yesterday discloses little about the details of the agreement.…

Just a few weeks ago, we wrote about the Radio Music License Committee (RMLC) filing a lawsuit against Global Music Rights (GMR) alleging that GMR was violating the antitrust laws by offering an all or nothing blanket license for rights to play the songs written by certain songwriters now represented by this new performing rights organization. RMLC was seeking to impose some oversight over the rates being charged for GMR royalties. This would be similar to the controls over the rates of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, whose rates can only be imposed following an agreement with a copyright holder or, where there is no voluntary agreement, by a determination by a court (for ASCAP and BMI) or an arbitration panel (for SESAC) that the new rates are reasonable. Now, GMR has filed its own lawsuit against RMLC (though it claims that its suit is unrelated to the one that RMLC filed against it) alleging that it is RMLC that is violating the antitrust laws (and certain California statutes) by forming a “cartel” of buyers, i.e. commercial radio stations who are refusing to deal with GMR individually but instead are looking to RMLC for the negotiation of a license agreement that will cover the entire industry. What are the issues presented by this dueling litigation?

The RMLC suit is premised on the concept that any time multiple products from independent marketplace competitors (in this case the songs of multiple songwriters) are packaged together and sold at an all or nothing price, there is the potential for obtaining prices higher than would be obtained on the open market. For example, while a contemporary hits formatted radio station could potentially decide that the price of Adele songs are too high and pull those songs from its playlists, it is not able to do so if that song is bundled with songs written by Pharrell Williams, Bruno Mars, Beyoncé, Kanye West, Brittany Spears and Katie Perry (all of whom are listed on the GMR website as being part of its repertoire) so that the radio station either takes all the songs from all of those writers or none at all. While it might be able to get away with not playing one or two of these artists, if it has to pull them all, listeners will notice. If the station wants to keep playing in the format that it has selected, it has to pay the bundled rights fee asked by the representative performing rights organization.
Continue Reading GMR Sues RMLC – Claims Antitrust Violations for Negotiating Royalties on Behalf of the Radio Industry – What Are the Implications?

RMLC, the organization that represents most commercial radio stations in the US in negotiating music license agreements for the public performance of musical compositions, has filed an antitrust lawsuit against GMR (Global Music Rights). GMR is a new performing rights organization (PRO), founded by music industry heavyweight Irving Azoff.  As we wrote here and here, GMR has signed agreements to represent songs from the catalogs of many prominent songwriters, including Adele, Taylor Swift, some of the Beatles, Madonna, Jay Z and many other big names.  RMLC (the Radio Music License Committee) is asking in its lawsuit that, initially, GMR be enjoined from licensing its catalog of songs for more than a rate that represents the pro rata share of its catalog to those of the other PROs while its broader antitrust action is litigated to establish an appropriate mechanism for determining those rates in the future.

Currently, the two largest PROs, ASCAP and BMI, are subject to antitrust consent decrees that govern their operations – decrees that the Department of Justice recently refused to substantially modify at the request of these groups (see our articles here and here.).  SESAC recently entered into a settlement of with RMLC, following an antitrust action similar to the one filed Friday against GMR, imposing restraints on SESAC’s ability to unilaterally impose its rates on radio stations, requiring instead that such rates be set by arbitrators if they cannot be voluntarily negotiated (see our articles here and here).  The songs in the GMR catalog are covered by ASCAP, BMI and SESAC licenses through the term of the current licenses with those organizations, but those licenses for radio all expire this year (see our article here).  Thus, RMLC argues that, if there is no injunction, starting January 1, 2017, a radio station will either be forced to pay whatever rates GMR demands for songs that are being withdrawn from the catalogs of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, or risk being sued for copyright infringement (and potential damages of up to $150,000 per infringement). 
Continue Reading RMLC Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against GMR And Seeks to Enjoin New Music License Fees on Radio Stations

On Friday, the US District Court judge who oversees the administration of the BMI Consent Decree rejected the recent Department of Justice interpretation that the antitrust consent decree required that, when BMI licensed music to music users, that license would embody the full musical work, not just a fractional interest that might be held by the songwriter who was the BMI member. DOJ’s decision stemmed from its review of the ASCAP and BMI antitrust consent decrees, which was initiated by ASCAP and BMI.  While ASCAP and BMI initiated the review looking for certain relief from provisions of the Consent Decrees that govern their operations (see our summary of the initial proposals here), in its decision, which we wrote about here, the DOJ decided that the only clarification of the consent decree that it would put forward was one that required 100% licensing by ASCAP and BMI.  100% licensing means that, if a song was licensed as part of the repertoire of ASCAP or BMI, the licensee would get rights to all of that song, even if there were multiple songwriters some of whom were not affiliated with ASCAP or BMI.  This interpretation was rejected by Judge Stanton, the Judge who oversees the BMI consent decree.  His decision can be found on the BMI website, here.

The Judge’s decision seems to be premised not on the policies and practicalities of licensing by ASCAP and BMI, but instead simply from an interpretation of the language of the BMI consent decree itself.  Moreover, the decision itself does not necessarily conclude that songs to which BMI holds less than a full right will necessarily be excluded from the BMI repertoire, only finding that “[i]f a fractionally-licensed composition is disqualified from inclusion in BMI’ s repertory, it is not for violation of any provision of the Consent Decree.”  The decision basically says that the rights conveyed by the BMI licenses to the songs in its catalog, and even the validity of the rights to even license any song in its repertoire, are not consent decree decisions, but instead decisions that are left to be determined in civil proceedings interpreting property and contract rights.  Seemingly, the Judge’s decision ends up raising more questions than it answers. 
Continue Reading BMI Judge Rejects DOJ Conclusion that Consent Decree Requires 100% of Songs – What Does that Mean for Music Services?