Needletime royalties
‘Needletime’ is an expression that has its roots in vinyl records. This is because, to play vinyl records, a needle (also called a stylus) runs in the groove of the record as it revolves on the turntable, transmitting vibrations. These vibrations are converted into electronic signals, which the amplifier then boosts and sends to the loudspeakers. In broadcasting, the amplifier would send the boosted signal to transmitters, and the music would be received by the radios tuned in to that radio station.
Originally then, needletime meant the amount of time that the needle was in action, playing music over the air. The idea is that the longer the needletime, the more music is being played — and so, the greater the royalty payment that must be made by the particular radio station. Nowadays, most radio stations broadcast digitally, and so there is no ‘needle’ time as such, but the expression is still used because of its descriptiveness and historical relevance.
Where a musical work or a literary work is broadcast, it is an infringement of the owner’s copyright if the broadcast takes place without consent. Then, the owner is left to claim damages or a reasonable royalty. Fortunately, the broadcasters have standing arrangements with SAMRO and other such associations that represent composers’ interests. Royalties are paid regularly to these collecting societies, who eventually distribute the funds to the copyright owners of the respective musical and literary works.
When it comes to sound recordings, the position is slightly different. No one may broadcast a sound recording (or transmit it in a diffusion service or play it in public) without paying a royalty. Following two long court cases which commenced in the Copyright Tribunal, a formula was established to work out what royalty must be paid by broadcasters (on the one hand) and by retail outlets (on the other hand).
This is of added interest because the needletime royalty must be shared between the record company (who owns the copyright in the sound recording) and the artistes who performed on the particular recording. Those artistes do not have any copyright in their performance, but the needletime provision in the Copyright Act (mirrored in the Performer’s Protection Act No. 11 of 1967) ensures that they are compensated for each broadcast of the track on which they played or sang.
Read section 9A of the Copyright Act.
SAMRO, CAPASSO and SAMPRA are organisations involved in collecting and distributing these needletime royalties, both to the record companies and to the artistes involved.
If you are an artist or actor and have doubts about whether you are being adequately compensated for the sound recordings on which you performed, consult a specialist copyright lawyer.
By the way, the needletime royalty is not the only protection that performing artistes have. The following are made criminal offences by the Performers’ Protection Act (and can also be interdicted) if done without the consent of the performing artiste:
- To broadcast or communicate to the public anyone’s unfixed performance. A performance becomes fixed when it is recorded on a storage medium. A live performance, as it is happening, is therefore unfixed;
- To make a fixation of someone’s unfixed performance (i.e. a bootleg);
- To make a reproduction of an unauthorised fixation of a performance;
- To make a reproduction for purposes other than for which the consent was given by the performer;
- To broadcast a fixation of a performance or cause any communication of the performance to the public without payment of a royalty to the performer concerned; and
- To sell, hire or distribute any unlawful fixation of a performance.
Read sections 5 and 9 of the Performers’ Protection Act 11 of 1967: http://www.cipc.co.za/index.php/legislation/acts/