Among the bundle of rights set forth in 17 U.S.C. § 106, copyright owners of certain works have the exclusive right to publicly perform the work. In particular, this statute maintains a public performance right for the copyright owners of “literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works. … ” Notably absent from this list, copyright owners of sound recordings have no such general public performance right. This exclusion is confirmed by 17 U.S.C. § 114, which provides that the rights granted to the copyright owners of these works “ do not include any right of performance under Section 106(4).”
This may change if Congress agrees with a little noticed addendum to a recent White House policy statement. That addendum followed a more detailed recommendation to broaden criminal penalties for copyright enforcement. In fact, the two parts of the policy recommendation have different objectives: Better protection against foreign copyright infringers is the objective of the primary recommendations in the statement. Giving performers on U.S. recordings parity with those making foreign recordings seems to be the objective of the second part of the statement. But the latter change, if enacted by Congress, has been a long time in coming.
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.
For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]
