Israel and copyright law:

Best of the Web writes, linking to this article:

“Israeli officials have drafted a copyright bill that would halt compensation to American artists and their record companies when their songs are played on Israeli radio stations and in Israeli clubs,” the Jerusalem Post reports:

Other artists, Israeli and foreign, would continue to receive payment under current practices, sources in Washington familiar with the bill told The Jerusalem Post. . . .

Israel seems to be considering excluding US artists and companies from payment, since officials believe only artists from countries which are party to the Rome Convention–a 1961 copyright treaty that grants protection to performers, record producers, and broadcasting organizations–should be compensated.

While 76 countries, including Israel, are party to the convention, the US is not. Israel became a member in 2002.

The bill, if passed, could anger the US, which has been sharply critical in recent years of Israel’s efforts to combat illegal copying of copyrighted and trademarked items. In May, the US rewarded Israel for improved police efforts in the area by removing it from its list of worst copyright pirates. Israel, however, remains on a watch list.

Such an attempted theft is an outrage, especially coming from a country to which America has been such a steadfast friend. It’s also stupid since, unlike many other copyright scofflaws, Israel actually has an advanced, knowledge-based economy that produces lots of intellectual property that Jerusalem would presumably like America to protect.

     It seems to me, though, that Israel is not behaving badly here — in fact, it’s only threatening to do to American performers what American law already does for all performers.

     Under American law, performers are not paid each time their song is played on normal radio or on a CD player in a bar, though the composers and lyricists are. An example: Peter Gabriel (the performer) records his version of Suzanne, which was written by Leonard Cohen (the composer and lyricist). When a radio station plays the song in the U.S., or when a bar plays it on CD, Cohen is paid, but Gabriel isn’t. (When a record company makes copies of the song, both Cohen and Gabriel are paid, not when someone merely performs the song.) Unfair? Illogical? Maybe — but for historical reasons, that’s the law.

     Under Israeli law, performers and composers are apparently both paid each time their song is played. (I’m not an expert on Israeli law, but this site and the Jerusalem Post article so suggest.) So Israel now gives all performers, American and otherwise, more rights than American law gives all performers. But the Israelis, upset that America doesn’t give Israeli performers these rights (the Israelis don’t care what America gives others), apparently want to play tit-for-tat, and put American performers in Israel in the same position as Israeli performers are in America. (I don’t know where to find an English-language version of the proposed Israeli statute, but I’m pretty sure that it wouldn’t affect the rights of composers, since the Jerusalem Post article refers to “performers,” and to “artists,” which usually means performers.)

     If I’m right, then the Israelis aren’t engaged in “attempted theft,” and aren’t being “copyright scofflaws,” under America’s own rules. Our law doesn’t believe in giving performers rights to payment when their recordings are played. We can’t call the Israelis thieves or scofflaws for taking exactly the same view with regard to our performers.

     This is a pretty counterintuitive point; I don’t fault the Best of the Web editor for not knowing this nicety of American copyright law, especially since the Jerusalem Post article doesn’t explicitly note this distinction, either. But I did want to set matters straight (again, assuming my understanding of the Israeli proposal is right), and to keep the Israel for being blamed for doing to Americans what we already do to everyone, Americans, Israelis, or anyone else.

     OVERSIMPLIFICATION NOTES: (1) When I say “X must pay Y,” sometimes I mean that X is required by law simply to pay Y, and sometimes that X is required to get a license from Y, which usually means he’ll have to pay Y. Sometimes permission is needed, and sometimes payment is itself enough; I’m not going to get into this here. (2) When I say “pay performers” or “pay composers,” that may often end up meaning paying those companies to which the performers or composers sold their copyright. ANOTHER NOTE: (3) You might wonder how composers can be efficiently paid whenever their songs are played (or how performers can be paid in those countries that mandate payment to perfoerms). The answer is the collection societies, such as ASCAP and BMI, from which radio stations, restaurants, and other businesses can buy blanket licenses that cover the works of thousands of composers; the societies then split the net revenues among the various composers, according to a formula that supposedly relates to the composers’ likely market share.

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