Last month the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) published a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) on issues related to performance rights organizations (PROs) in the Federal Register. The NOI states that the USCO is collecting information regarding issues related to PROs and the Copyright Act’s public performance right for musical works. This NOI was issued at Congress’s request as a way to gather information on questions related to the increasing number of PROs and their licensing revenue distribution practices.

The Copyright Act’s Public Performance Right for Musical Works

Seventy-four percent of small and independent breweries fall under the categories of taprooms and brewpubs, which means that a certain percentage of their revenue comes from own-premise sales. Simply put, they make revenue when people come to visit their brewery. These businesses often play music, whether it is in the background, hosting open mic nights and karaoke, or letting musicians and bands use their space as a concert venue. In short, music and craft breweries go hand in hand. Part of having music at your brewery, in any form, requires that you have a license to play that music.

PROs like Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) have been around for decades and work closely with breweries and other hospitality businesses to build licenses that work for their business model, but in the past few years an influx of new PROs entered the industry. Each of these individual PROs requires a license to play music written and performed by the artists they represent. Paying someone to use their product is fair, but in the case of PROs there is significant confusion about what exact product a business gets from holding a license.

• An artist and songwriter of a popular song might have a different PRO licensing their work. When there were only a few PROs in the industry, purchasing licenses from all of them was practical. Today the growing number of PROs in the marketplace makes universal licensing a much bigger financial burden for a small business.

• No single, clear database provides information about which PRO owns licenses to which music. What currently exists isn’t updated in a timely fashion, putting brewers at risk of believing a PRO covers an artist or song, but the singer/songwriter switched to a new PRO, leaving the brewery open to fines and lawsuits.

The Brewers Association plans to submit comments to the USCO in response to the NOI. To assist us in preparing comments, we would like to hear from members about their recent experiences in licensing music from PROs. Provide your feedback here.