China Issues New Rules on Radio, TV Royalties
China Business News, 11/19/09
China's State Council has issued new regulations concerning standards and practices for royalty payments for recorded content broadcast on radio and television stations, to go into effect on January 1, 2010.
The regulations outline three royalty payment methods: first, radio and television stations arrange with the appropriate copyright management agencies to pay an annual fixed royalty to the copyright holder; second, broadcasters pay copyright holders a portion of advertising revenues; third, broadcasters pay royalties based on the length of time the copyrighted work is broadcast.
The regulations specify that for the next five years, royalties paid in proportion to advertising revenue will be calculated as follows: if the copyrighted content is broadcast for 1% or less of the program, the copyright holder will receive 0.01% of advertising revenues; 1%-3% of the broadcast, 0.02%; 3%-6% of the program, 0.09%-0.15% of revenues, etc. If, for example, 80% of the program consists of the copyrighted work, the creator will receive 0.8% of advertising revenues. Five years after the regulations take effect, these rates will be increased.
For time-based royalties, radio stations must pay royalties of RMB 0.30 per minute. For the first five years that the regulations are in effect TV stations must pay RMB 1.5 per minute, after which the rate will be increased to RMB 2 per minute.
Keywords: TV advertising IPR content revenue royalty television copyright State Council broadcasting regulation
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