US, EU Rightsholders Lose $150 Million-Plus Annually From Copyright Act Exemption, GESAC Says
U.S. and European copyright owners lose more than $150 million annually in royalties because of the Copyright Act’s Section 110(5)(b), consulting firm PMP Conseil said in a European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers-funded study. The section, passed as…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
part of the 1998 Fairness in Music Licensing Act, conditionally exempts bars and restaurants of less than 3,750 square feet from getting a public performance license from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers or Broadcast Music Inc. The exemption costs EU rightsholders $44 million in revenue annually, GESAC said. It surveyed “a wide survey of US bars, restaurants and retail establishments to gauge their use of music,” the group said in a news release. The U.S. “is one of only two more economically developed countries that have an exemption in place for playing music in bars, restaurants and retail establishments by means of radio or TV” and “it is unquestionable that this exemption has an unacceptable negative impact on authors,” GESAC said. The group plans to present the study’s findings to the European Commission and lobby the EC to pressure the U.S. to rescind Section 110(5)(b). The U.S. and EU “are currently holding talks, although fragile, over trade agreements where the harm caused by this exemption needs to be raised and addressed,” GESAC General Manager Véronique Desbrosses said. “We expect this study to have a significant effect on the weight of the issue.”