More than $3 ½ Million Distributed to Recording Artists this November!

The AFM/AFTRA Intellectual Property Rights Distribution Fund, SoundExchange and the Alliance of Artists and Record Companies (“AARC”) all made distributions to recording artists this November, for a total of more than 3 ½ million dollars distributed to recording artists.

AARC was established to collect the featured artist and record label shares for the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (“AHRA”).  AFTRA was one of the founders of AARC and sits on its Board.   The AHRA requires that manufacturers of digital audio devices pay royalties, a portion of which will be distributed to artists.  AARC also collects US featured artist rental and hometaping monies collected overseas.  In November, AARC distributed nearly $2 million dollars to featured performers, including US  Audio Home Recording Act royalties, Japanese and Spanish hometaping royalties and Japanese rental royalties.  Featured artists should go to www.aarcroyalties.com to join AARC.

SoundExchange -- --a nonprofit organization governed by label representatives and artist representatives, including AFTRA-- distributes digital performance royalties for featured artists collected pursuant to US Copyright Law when recordings are broadcast on non-interactive digital music services, including web radio stations and satellite subscription radio services like XM and Sirius.  SoundExchange also distributes US broadcast money collected overseas.  Unfortunately, unlike most of the rest of the world, sound recordings do not have a broad performance right in the US, which means radio stations do not have to pay the performer or the label when they play the recording.  Because we do not have this right, many countries refuse to pay US artists for the broadcast of their recordings overseas.  In November, SoundExchange distributed more than one million dollars to featured artists, for the broadcast of their recordings on cable and satellite television services, satellite radio and on the web.   Featured artists should go to www.soundexchange.com to join SoundExchange and/or to provide payment information.  You must hurry as some artist claims will expire soon!

The AFTRA/AFM Fund distributes the non-featured performer royalties for US hometaping and digital performance of recordings and the foreign rental, hometaping and broadcast monies we collect.  In November, the AFTRA/AFM Fund distributed more than one-half million dollars in royalties collected for 2000 and 2001 Japanese rental and the 2001 Japanese hometaping and US Audio Home Recording Act royalties to nearly 6,000 non-featured performers.  Please visit www.raroyalties.org to find out if you have money and to provide payment information.