Law Commons^™

Happy Together? The Uneasy Coexistence Of Federal And State Protection For Sound Recordings, Gary Pulsinelli

Scholarly Works

Federal copyright law provides a digital performance right that allows owners of sound recordings to receive royalties when their works are transmitted over the Internet or via satellite radio. However, this federal protection does not extend to pre-1972 sound recordings, which are excluded from the federal copyright system and instead left to the protections of state law. No state law explicitly provides protection for any type of transmission, a situation the owners of pre-1972 sound recordings find lamentable. These owners are therefore attempting to achieve such protection by various means. In California, they filed a lawsuit, claiming that they already …