Digital Performance Royalties: Should Radio Pay?

Authors

Bruce H. Phillips
Carl R. Moore

First Page

169

Abstract

We must acknowledge that some questions remain unanswered. Have we entered an era in which record labels, recording artists, record producers, and musicians will finally earn royalties for the public performance of their creations? Will the recent Copyright Office action be a watershed development in United States copyright law? Or will the broadcasters and their well-funded and powerful lobbying arm, the NAB, prevail in the end--if not in the courts, then in Congress? The only clear answer is simply this: not if the RIAA, the record labels' own well-funded and powerful lobbying arm, has anything to do with it. It seems the only thing certain in the digital age is uncertainty, and it is likely we will have to wait for the last man standing to find out whether radio will ultimately have to pay for the digitally transmitted public performance of sound recordings.

Recommended Citation

Bruce H. Phillips and Carl R. Moore, Digital Performance Royalties: Should Radio Pay?, 3 Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law 169 (2020)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/jetlaw/vol3/iss2/3