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to prevent such systems being subjected to severe penalties for innocent or casual acts.
Subclause (A) provides that a cable system is fully liable where the carriage of the signals comprising the secondary transmission is not permissible under the rules, regulations or authorizations of the Federal Communications Commission. Subclause (B) provides that a cable system is fully liable if it has not at least one month before the date of the secondary transmission recorded the notice specified by subsection (d) of this section.
The committee has considered excluding from the scope of the compulsory license granted to cable systems the carriage in certain circumstances of organized professional sporting events. The committee has also considered the inclusion in this legislation of language extending to cable television the same restrictions as are contained in Public Law 87-331 for the protection of intercollegiate and scholastic sports from the competition of televised professional games. Without prejudice to the arguments advanced in behalf of these proposals, the committee has concluded that these issues should be left to the rule-making process of the Federal Communications Commission, or if a statutory resolution is deemed appropriate to legislation originating in the Committee on Commerce.
Requirements for a compulsory license
Subsection (d)(1) provides that for any secondary transmission to receive a compulsory license the cable system must at least one month before the date of the secondary transmission, record in the Copyright Office a notice, including a statement of the identity and address of the person who owns the secondary transmission service or has power to exercise control over it, together with the name and location of the primary transmitter. Clause (2) provides that a cable system whose secondary transmissions have been subject to compulsory licensing shall file quarterly statements with the Register of Copyrights. These statements shall specify the number of channels on which the cable system made secondary transmissions to its subscribers, the names and locations of all primary transmitters whose transmissions were further transmitted by the cable system, the total number of subscribers and the gross amounts paid to the cable system by subscribers for the basic service of providing secondary transmissions. This statement must be accompanied by a total royalty fee computed according to the provisions of this legislation.
Copyright royalty payments
Because the cable television industry has not been paying copyright royalties for its secondary transmissions, very little relevant economic data was available to the Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights when it established the schedule of royalty payments in S. 543. The Subcommittee in 1973 held a hearing on the royalty schedule previously approved by the Subcommittee and contained in S. 1361. At that hearing the program producers, broadcasters and music performing rights societies expressed opposition to the inclusion of a royalty schedule in the statute. The cable television industry supported the Congress initially determining the royalty payments to be made by cable television systems but expressed concern that the
