TN Bill Proposes Digital Performance Royalties For Older Songs

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Tennessee lawmakers have filed a bill they say would close a loophole in copyright law and establish digital performance royalties for recordings that were made before 1972, according to The Tennessean in Nashville.

Under current copyright law, songs recorded prior to Feb. 15, 1972, do not pay a performance royalty to the artist and musicians, but songs recorded after that date do.

Advocates hope the legislation spurs Congress to notice and take action on the issue of royalty reform. As of now, pre-1972 songs are protected by a patchwork of state laws and common law. Nonprofit organization SoundExchange describes digital performance royalties as “fees that service providers such as Pandora, SiriusXM and webcasters are required by law to pay for streaming musical content.”

The issue is especially important in Nashville, where artists and musicians responsible for volumes of iconic songs aren’t being paid when their hits are streamed on newer digital options, such as satellite and Internet radio.

“I’m glad to hear that it’s finally being considered. That’s for sure,” said Mark Volman, founding member of the pop-rock band the Turtles, which topped the charts with “Happy Together” in 1967. “For many of us, we’ve been kind of in a quandary over the reasons they arbitrarily picked that day to cut royalties out of artists. I thought it was a terrible decision.”

The Turtles have filed lawsuits in California, New York and Florida seeking compensation from satellite radio companies such as SiriusXM to compensate artists for their pre-1972 work.

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