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quirements, payment of the royalty fees established in the bill, a ban on the substitution or deletion of commercial advertising, and geographic limits on the compulsory license for copyrighted programs broadcast by Canadian or Mexican stations. Failure to comply with these requirements and limitations subjects a cable system to a suit for copyright infringement.and the remedies provided under the bill for such actions.
In setting a royalty fee schedule for the compulsory license, the Committee determined that the initial schedule should be established in the bill. It recognized, however, that adjustments to the schedule would be required from time to time. Accordingly, the Copyright Royalty Commission, established in chapter 8, is empowered to make the adjustments in the initial rates, at specified times, based on standards and conditions set forth in the bill.
In setting an initial fee schedule, the Senate bill based the royalty fee on a sliding scale related to the gross receipts of a cable system for providing the basic retransmission service, and rejected a statutory scheme that would distinguish between “local” and “distant” signals. The Committee determined, however, that there was no evidence that the retransmission of “local” broadcast signals by a cable operator threatens the existing market for copyright program owners. Similarly, the retransmission of network programing, including network programing which is broadcast in “distant” markets, does not injure the copyright owner. The copyright owner contracts with the network on the basis of his programing reaching all markets served by the network and is compensated accordingly.
By contrast, the retransmission of distant non-network programing by cable systems causes damage to the copyright owner by distributing the program in an area beyond which it has been licensed. Such retransmission adversely affects the ability of the copyright owner to exploit the work in the distant market. It is also of direct benefit to the cable system by enhancing its ability to attract subscribers and increase revenues. For these reasons, the Committee has concluded that the copyright liability of cable television systems under the compulsory license should be limited to the retransmission of distant non-network programing.
In implementing this conclusion, the Committee generally followed a proposal submitted by the cable and motion picture industries, the two industries most directly affected by the establishment of copyright royalties for cable television systems. Under the proposal, the royalty fee is determined by a two step computation. First, a value called a “distant signal equivalent” is assigned to all “distant” signals. Distant signals are defined as signals retransmitted by a cable system, in whole or in part, outside the local service area of the primary transmitter. Different values are assigned to independent, network, and educational stations because of the different amounts of viewing of non-network programing carried by such stations. For example, the viewing of non-network programs on network stations is considered to approximate 25 percent. These values are then combined and a scale of percentages is applied to the cumulative total.
The Committee also considered various proposals to exempt certain categories of cable systems from royalty payments altogether. The Committee determined that the approach of the Senate bill to require some payment by every cable system is sound, but established separate
