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A performance rights organisation (PRO), also known as a performing rights society, provides intermediary functions, particularly collection of
royalties A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...
, between copyright holders and parties who wish to use copyrighted works ''publicly'' in locations such as shopping and dining venues. Legal consumer purchase of works, such as buying CDs from a music store, confer ''private'' performance rights. PROs usually only collect royalties when use of a work is incidental to an organisation's purpose. Royalties for works essential to an organisation's purpose, such as theaters and radio, are usually negotiated directly with the rights holder. The interest of the organisations varies: many have the sole focus of musical works, while others may also encompass works and authors for audiovisual, drama, literature, or the visual arts. In some countries PROs are called
copyright collective Copyrights can either be licensed or assigned by the owner of the copyright. A copyright collective (also known as a copyright society, copyright collecting agency, licensing agency or copyright collecting society or collective management organiz ...
s or copyright collecting agencies. A copyright collective is more general than a PRO as it is not limited to performances and includes reproduction rights organisations (RROs). RROs represent works distributed via mediums such as CD, audiocassette, or computer file rather than use of works in public settings. The global governing body for PROs is CISAC headquartered in France, with 228 member societies in 119 countries.


History

The first performing rights society was established in France in 1851. In the United Kingdom, the
Copyright Act 1842 The Copyright Act 1842 (5 & 6 Vict. c. 45) was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom, which received the Royal Assent on 1 July 1842 and was repealed in 1911. It revised and consolidated the copyright law of the United Kingdom. It was one of t ...
was the first to protect musical compositions with the
Performing Right Society PRS for Music Limited (formerly The MCPS-PRS Alliance Limited) is a British music copyright collective, made up of two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) and the Performing Right Society (PRS). It undertake ...
, founded in 1914 encompassing live performances. The rights for recorded or broadcast performance are administered by the
Mechanical Copyright Protection Society PRS for Music Limited (formerly The MCPS-PRS Alliance Limited) is a British music copyright collective, made up of two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) and the Performing Right Society (PRS). It undertake ...
, founded in 1924. Italy introduced a performing rights society in 1882 and Germany in 1915. In the United States, The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) was founded in 1914; Society of European Stage Authors & Composers (SESAC) in 1930 and
Broadcast Music, Inc. Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) is a performance rights organization in the United States. It collects blanket license fees from businesses that use music, entitling those businesses to play or sync any songs from BMI's repertoire of over 20.6 milli ...
(BMI) in 1939. Sociedad Puertorriqueña de Autores y Compositores de Musica (SPACEM) was founded in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1953. SPACEM's name was changed to ACEMLA, or Asociacion de Compositoes y Editores de Musica and remains today PRO No. 76 in the CISAC's roster of performing rights societies.


Activities

Other than their primary purpose as an intermediary between rights holders and customers, PROs are highly active in legal arenas. PROs take alleged rights violators to
court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance ...
, or in the U.S., to the
Copyright Royalty Board The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) is a U.S. system of three copyright royalty judges who determine rates and terms for copyright statutory licenses and make determinations on distribution of statutory license royalties collected by the U.S. Copyrig ...
, of the
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
. PROs lobby on behalf of rights holders, especially in discussions of legal royalty rates. As a side benefit of tracking public performance of works for royalty collection, PROs publish statistics of publicly performed works. The licensing services provided by a PRO arguably provide advantage to customers, who can simultaneously license all works the PRO represents.


Criticisms

PROs have been criticised for charging
non-profit organisation A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
s for their use of copyrighted music in situations where the non-profit organisation was not earning money from the use. ASCAP, for example, was eventually forced in the face of public opinion to abandon its attempts to charge the
Girl Scouts of the USA Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA), commonly referred to as simply Girl Scouts, is a youth organization for girls in the United States and American girls living abroad. Founded by Juliette Gordon Low in 1912, it was organized a ...
for singing campfire songs. ASCAP's and
SESAC SESAC is a for-profit performance-rights organization in the United States. Founded in 1930 as the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, it is the second-oldest performance-rights organization in the United States.
's policy of charging
non-commercial educational A non-commercial educational station (NCE station) is a radio station or television station that does not accept on-air advertisements (TV ads or radio ads), as defined in the United States by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and was or ...
(NCE)
radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
s for playing copyrighted music has also been criticised, especially by
college radio Campus radio (also known as college radio, university radio or student radio) is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively created or produced ...
stations across the U.S., which rely entirely on student and listener support for funding and have difficulty affording the extra fees. Community Orchestras, which mostly play classical works in the public domain, may occasionally play a work within copyright, but are forced to pay licenses to rights societies on all concert revenues including concerts where all music is in the public domain, which is then distributed to songwriters of pop songs. PROs are often criticised for stretching the definition of "public performance." Until relatively recently in the U.S., playing copyrighted music in restaurants did not involve legal issues if the media was legally purchased. PROs now demand royalties for such use.
"One exception to the rule allows businesses of a certain size (stores under 2,000 square feet, restaurants or bars under 3,750 square feet) to play music from a radio, television, or similar household device without a license, provided there are fewer than six speakers (with limits on the placement of speakers), and customers aren't charged to listen. Other exceptions include educational and charitable functions... If your business falls into one of the categories listed above (size of business, number and placement of speakers, etc.) radio/TV] you may want to check out section 110(5) of the Copyright Act. As you likely won't need a license. But, before making a decision, check with a lawyer."
By discouraging performances in limited public arenas, again using the restaurant example, critics say PROs eliminate the free publicity such performances provide for a work thereby depressing media sales. Incidentally, lower media sales conflict with PROs, but disputes between the two parties are not known to occur since each type of organisation represents the interests of the same parties - rights owners - and are forced to work in common interest. Rights owners – especially independents and newcomers not represented by large Music publisher (popular music), publishing companies – criticise the PROs for what they deem to be "mystical" formulas for deciding who gets what share of the total licensing revenue received. They also criticise PROs for slow or non-existent payments and excessive membership dues or service fees.


Organisations


International


North America


United States

*
AllTrack AllTrack is a US-based performing rights organization (PRO) that represents independent artists, songwriters, composers, producers, and publishers for the licensing and collection of their performing rights royalties. Its members are compensated w ...
(U.S.) *
ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...
(U.S.) * BMI (U.S.) *Global Music Rights (U.S.) *
SESAC SESAC is a for-profit performance-rights organization in the United States. Founded in 1930 as the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, it is the second-oldest performance-rights organization in the United States.
(U.S.) *
SoundExchange SoundExchange is an American non-profit collective rights management organization founded in 2003. It is the sole organization designated by the U.S. Congress to collect and distribute digital performance royalties for sound recordings. It pays ...
(U.S.) *
Pro Music Rights Pro is an abbreviation meaning "professional". Pro, PRO or variants thereof may also refer to: People * Miguel Pro (1891–1927), Mexican priest * Pro Hart (1928–2006), Australian painter * Mlungisi Mdluli (born 1980), South African retired f ...
(U.S.)


Canada

*
SOCAN The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) is a Canadian performance rights organization that represents the performing rights of more than 135,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers. The organization collects ...
(
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
) * Re:Sound Music Licensing Company *
CMRRA The Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd. (CMRRA) is a music licensing agency based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1975, CMRRA is a music licensing collective representing music rights-holders who range in size from large mult ...
(Canada)


Others

Most countries (that observe copyright) have the equivalent:


State regulation and income taxes

Although the
Copyright Clause The Copyright Clause (also known as the Intellectual Property Clause, Copyright and Patent Clause, or the Progress Clause) describes an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution ( Article I, Section 8, Clause 8). The clause, wh ...
of the United States Constitution delegates the power to establish Copyright law in the United States, in recent years, a number of States have enacted transparency laws in respect to Performing Rights Societies. These generally force Performing Rights Societies to discloses the musical works they license. Because many establishments pay blanket license fees to Performing Rights Societies but have little or no idea if the fees they pay actually secure the rights to perform musical works. This can result in unfair business practices called tolling. Many performing rights societies send representatives into businesses who attempt to disrupt or shut down a concert, claiming an insufficient or performing right license, and some states have banned this practice. Moreover, states with income taxes hope to withhold royalty income for "performances" inside those states rather than in the state where a composer/songwriter lives or the Performing Rights Society is located. In practice, state income tax accounting is very difficult to regulate. Notable is Colorado's law, which requires each Performing Rights Society to disclose its entire catalog.


Further reading

*Choquette, Frederic
"The Returned Value of PROs"
''Music Business Journal'',
Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...
, May 2011 * Schulenberg, Richard
''Legal aspects of the music industry: an insider's view''
Random House Digital, Inc., 1999. Cf. Chapter 13, "Performance, Performing, and Neighboring Rights".


References

{{Use British English, date=May 2014 Music licensing de:Verwertungsgesellschaft