[Fmpro] HR 4798

[Christopher Alpiar]

AFM Legislative Alert
Dear CHRISTOPHER KENNEDY ALPIAR,

This morning the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Courts, the  
Internet and Intellectual Property passed H.R. 4789, the Performance  
Rights Act. This is a major victory and it puts us one step close to  
securing a full performance right in sound recordings. The next step  
is for the bill to be voted on by the full House Judiciary Committee.  
The victory today proves that there is strong bipartisan support for a  
performance right for musicians.

Thank you so much for your help.

Sincerely,

Hal Ponder


OK So here is the text in full:

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h4789/text

It is
"A BILL To provide parity in radio performance rights under title 17,  
United States Code, and for other purposes."

summary:

12/18/2007--Introduced.
Performance Rights Act - Amends federal copyright law to:
(1) grant performers of sound recordings equal rights to compensation  
from terrestrial broadcasters;
(2) establish a flat annual fee in lieu of payment of royalties for  
individual terrestrial broadcast stations with gross revenues of less  
than $1.25 million and for non-commercial, public broadcast stations;
(3) grant an exemption from royalty payments for broadcasts of  
religious services and for incidental uses of musical sound  
recordings; and
(4) grant terrestrial broadcast stations that make limited feature  
uses of sound recordings a per program license option.
Provides that nothing in this Act shall adversely affect the public  
performance rights or royalties payable to songwriters or copyright  
owners of musical works.

My questions besides the obvious of what the overall implications of  
this bill are to all parties affected, are why weren't music creators  
represented and worked in some verbiage we would like to see at the  
same time? It seems ridiculous that the amount of money/effort needed  
to get any change to Federal copyright law would not be combined in  
alliance with other similar special interests who could have used this  
time in front of congress to do a whole lot more, or at least a little  
more that includes change for music creators

Christopher Kennedy Alpiar
Cinematic Composer
937.294.0900 (Dayton Studio)
310.339.9603 (Los Angeles)
877.294.0912 (Toll Free)
www.alpiar.com