Copyright Royalty Judges Reinstate Reporting Relief for Most Noncommercial Broadcasters

You may recall that in August 2016, we reported that the Copyright Royalty Judges had proposed to modify the rules governing how noncommercial broadcasters are supposed to report the sound recordings that they stream to SoundExchange. That proposal was published at the urging of the National Association of Broadcasters (“NAB”) and the National Religious Broadcasters Noncommercial Music License Committee (“NRBNMLC”), who had pointed out that a recent change to the reporting rules had introduced an apparently unintended anomaly. Under the amended rules, noncommercial broadcasters paying no more than the minimum $500 annual fee in royalties appeared to be subject to more burdensome reporting rules than those that applied to commercial broadcasters paying no more than that amount. (We won’t rehash the reporting requirements or the history of how this anomaly was introduced into the requirements but will instead refer inquiring minds to our prior discussion here.)

In what will come as music to the ears of those noncommercial broadcasters, the Judges have now made the proposed change official. Both types of broadcasters – so long as they owe no more in royalties than the $500 annual minimum fee – are excused from two reporting requirements that generally apply to other types of webcasters: