Hatch, Leahy Introduce Bipartisan Performance Rights Legislation

Press Release

Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) introduced bipartisan legislation Wednesday to give fair compensation to musical artists while protecting songwriters.

The Performance Rights Act would end an exemption benefiting traditional, over-the-air broadcasters, which are not required to pay recording artists for use of their work, as webcasters, satellite radio providers and cable companies do. Under current law, conventional radio stations are not required to pay for such a license.

Longtime partners in copyright and intellectual property issues, Leahy and Hatch introduced performance rights legislation in the last Congress. The legislation introduced Wednesday requires broadcast radio to compensate artists for the use of their sound recordings. The Performance Rights Act, however, also provides noncommercial radio stations, including educational, public and religious stations, with the option of a nominal, annual flat fee. The bill also provides similar relief to commercial radio stations that generate less than $1.25 million in annual revenue will, which includes 77 percent of commercial radio stations nationwide.

"In introducing the Performance Rights Act, we are sensitive to the needs of broadcast radio stations," said Leahy. "I want to ensure that the performing artist, the one whose sound recordings drive the success of broadcast radio, is compensated fairly. Our legislation, appropriately, permits noncommercial stations to take advantage of the statutory copyright license subject only to a nominal annual payment to the artists. Similarly, we intend to nurture, not threaten, small commercial broadcasters. Smaller music stations are working hard to serve their local communities while finding the right formula to increase their audience size. I will continue to work with the broadcasters - large and small, commercial and noncommercial - to strike the right balance."

"This legislation would ensure that musical performers and songwriters receive fair compensation from all companies across the broadcast spectrum - not just from Web casters, satellite radio providers and cable companies," said Hatch. "It is an attempt to strike a harmonious balance between fair compensation for artists and a vibrant radio industry in the U.S."

The Performance Rights Act is cosponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). The Senate Judiciary Committee, which Leahy chairs and of which Hatch is a former chairman, held a hearing on performance rights parity in November 2007. Lyle Lovett and Alice Peacock, both singer-songwriters, testified before the panel.

Companion legislation was introduced Wednesday in the House of Representatives by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

"All those in the creative chain of musical production - the artists, musicians, and others who enrich us culturally - deserve to be justly compensated for their work," said Conyers. "We have introduced the Performance Rights Act to ensure fairness so that any service that plays music pays those who create and own the recordings - just as satellite, cable and internet radio stations currently do. Working with the Senate, I hope that Congress may act quickly to pass this important legislation to level the playing field between different technologies and ensure rightful compensation to performers."

"Beyond the fairness that this bill provides for performers, we have an opportunity to show the rest of the world that the United States practices what it preaches in protecting intellectual property," said Issa. "For the past 70 years Congress has ignored the constitutional mandate that we protect copyrights by completely exempting broadcasters from paying performers, while the vast majority of countries have no such exemption. Our ignorance of intellectual property rights on this issue is a worldwide embarrassment and it must end now."

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