Content Owners Getting $750 Million In Copyright License Back Payments

Over the next few months, Hollywood studios, cable and satellite operators, TV stations, sports leagues and others will be divvying up a pot of $750 million in royalties.

TV stations' take of that will be about $120 million (about $75 million from cable and another $45 million or so from satellite), which the National Association of Broadcasters will be distributing in a May-June time period, according to a source familiar with the payments. Those payments cover TV stations news and other local programming. That payment comes after Copyright Royalty judges in March freed up that $750 million in payments, according to the Library of Congress, payments that cover disputes resolved by the judges covering 2004 and 2005, with the 2006-2009 funds coming from a negotiated settlement between the parties for 2006-2009.