Page:H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476 (1976) Page 102.djvu

 area; after 6 months it must be destroyed or preserved solely for archival purposes.

Organizations covered.—The ephemeral recording privilege is given by subsection (a) to “a transmitting organization entitled to transmit to the public a performance or display of a work.” Assuming that the transmission meets the other conditions of the provision, it makes no difference what type of public transmission the organization is making: commercial radio and television broadcasts, public radio and television broadcasts not exempted by section 110(2), pay-TV, closed circuit, background music, and so forth. However, to come within the scope of subsection (a), the organization must have the right to make the transmission “under a license or transfer of the copyright or the limitations on exclusive rights in sound recordings specified by section 114(a).” Thus, except in the case of copyrighted sound recordings (which have no exclusive performing rights under the bill), the organization must be a transferee or licensee (including compulsory licensee) of performing rights in the work in order to make an ephemeral recording of it.

Some concern has been expressed by authors and publishers lest the term “organization” be construed to include a number of affiliated broadcasters who could exchange the recording without restrictions. The term is intended to cover a broadcasting network, or a local broadcaster or individual transmitter; but, under clauses (1) and (2) of the subsection, the ephemeral recording must be “retained and used solely by the transmitting organization that made it,” and must be used solely for that organization’s own within its own area. Thus, an ephemeral recording made by one transmitter, whether it be a network or local broadcaster, could not be made available for use by another transmitter. Likewise, this subsection does not apply to those nonsimultaneous transmissions by cable systems not located within the boundary of the forty-eight contiguous States that are granted a compulsory license under section 111.

Scope of the privilege.—Subsection (a) permits the transmitting organization to make “no more than one copy or phonorecord of a particular transmission program embodying the performance or display.” A “transmission program” is defined in section 101 as a body of material produced for the sole purpose of transmission as a unit. Thus, under section 112(a), a transmitter could make only one copy or phonorecord of a particular “transmission program” containing a copyrighted work, but would not be limited as to the number of times the work itself, could be duplicated as part of other “transmission programs.”

Three specific limitations on the scope of the ephemeral recording privilege are set out in subsection (a), and unless all are met the making of an “ephemeral recording” becomes fully actionable as an infringement. The first requires that the copy or phonorecord be “retained and used solely by the transmitting organization that made it,” and that “no further copies or phonoreeords are reproduced from it.” This means that a transmitting organization would have no privilege of exchanging ephemeral recordings with other transmitters or of allowing them to duplicate their own ephemeral recordings from the copy or phonorecord it has made. There is nothing in the provision to prevent a transmitting organization from having an ephemeral