authorization, but only for a single performance of a dramatic work published at least ten years earlier.
With respect to section 110(5), the conference substitute conforms to the language in the Senate bill. It is the intent of the conferees that a small commercial establishment of the type involved in Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151 (1975), which merely augmented a home-type receiver and which was not of sufficient size to justify, as a practical matter, a subscription to a commercial background music service, would be exempt. However, where the public communication was by means of something other than a home-type receiving apparatus, or where the establishment actually makes a further transmission to the public, the exemption would not apply.
secondary transmissions, including cable television
Senate bill
Section 111 of the Senate bill dealt, among other secondary transmissions, with retransmissions of broadcasts by cable systems to subscribers. In general effect, it created a compulsory license for any cable retransmission authorized by the Federal Communications Commission; where the cable system repeatedly or willfully carried signals not permitted by the FCC, or where it failed to follow the compulsory licensing procedure set forth in section 111, the cable system was to be fully liable. Full liability would have been imposed on the carriage of any foreign, including Mexican or Canadian, signals. The Senate bill required cable systems to file quarterly statements of account, accompanied by payment of a royalty fee based on a sliding scale of percentages of gross receipts from subscribers (running from ½ of one percent of quarterly receipts up to $40,000 to 2½ percent of quarterly receipts up to $160,000). A special reduced fee was provided for systems with quarterly gross receipts of less than $40,000. For purposes of computing royalty fees, no distinctions were made between retransmissions of local and distant signals or between network and other signals.
Taping for nonsimultaneous transmission of broadcasts was permitted under a compulsory license for cable systems operating in certain areas outside the continental boundaries of the United States. The Senate bill contained no provisions dealing with alteration of program content or substitution of commercials by a cable operator. Section 501(c) gave a local broadcaster holding an exclusive license standing to sue for copyright infringement for cable retransmissions within its local service area. Under chapter 8 of the Senate bill, the Copyright Royalty Tribunal was mandated to review the royalty schedule, established in section 111, and its basis, in 1980 and at ten-year intervals thereafter.
House bill
In addition to certain amendments aimed at clarification and procedural simplification, the House bill retained the basic compulsory licensing scheme envisioned in section 111 but changed it in a number of important respects. The compulsory license was extended to some, but not all, cable systems carrying Mexican or Canadian signals. Payments of royalty fees, which were to be semiannual, were deter-
