Is It Time To Dump Compulsory License?

[Commentary] Through retransmission consent fees, broadcast TV stations get twenty-five to fifty cents per cable subscriber per month. That fee needs to rise to $3 per subscriber. How's that gonna happen? One way would be for networks to negotiate on behalf of all its affiliates. Another option is far more radical and riskier. But maybe radical and risky is the way broadcasters should be thinking these days. This approach involves undermining the compulsory copyright license, which permits cable and satellite operators to carry local TV stations with their patchwork of local, syndicated and network programming without having to pay royalties to the stations or any of the other copyright owners. The license goes back to 1976. Congress concluded that cable carriage of TV stations was a good idea, but that it would be near impossible for the many tiny cable systems in the then unconsolidated industry to negotiate copyright deals with each and every TV station. So it created a blanket copyright license that cable systems could use to carry local TV signals for free. They would have to pay modest royalties set by the government to import distant signals, however. The license is compulsory in the sense that copyright holders really have no say in the matter. They are forced to license their programming cable systems. Disney and NBCU have been pushing the idea of overturning the license in Washington. As major copyright and station owners, they think it makes sense for themselves and, as operators of broadcast networks, they think it makes sense for their affiliates and broadcasting as a whole. Their plan would allow TV stations to stick with the current compulsory license/must carry/retransmission consent regime. Or, they could opt for a free-market approach, under which cable and satellite could no longer hide from copyright payments under the compulsory license. Stations would aggregate licensing rights from the networks, syndicators and other copyright holders whose programming fill their schedules and then turn around and license those same rights to the cable and satellite operators for big, fat payments. Or at least that's the hope.