Buck v. Jewell-LaSalle Realty Co.

Background

A music-rights group and one of its members sued a hotel that wired a master radio to rooms and provided loudspeakers or headphones so guests could hear broadcast programs. A local commercial broadcaster sent the programs; there was no contract between the broadcaster and the hotel. The plaintiffs warned both the broadcaster and the hotel that copyrighted songs could not be played without a license. After a lower court refused relief against the hotel, the appeals court asked whether the hotel’s acts of receiving a broadcast and making it audible to guests counted as a performance under the Copyright Act.

Reasoning

The Court faced the simple question of whether operating a master radio and speakers for guests is the same as performing the music. The opinion explains that broadcasting was not known when the original law passed, but the Act grants composers the exclusive right to public performances for profit. The Court rejected the hotel’s arguments that reception is merely listening or that only the broadcaster performs. Converting radio waves back into audible sound and amplifying them is a form of reproduction. By installing, powering, and operating the receiving and loudspeaker system the hotel produced the music in its rooms in much the same way as hiring an orchestra.

Real world impact

The ruling means places that make broadcast music available to paying guests can be treated as performing the music and may need licenses from copyright owners. The certified question was answered “Yes”; the Court did not decide here whether the hotel’s use was in fact operated for profit, which could be considered later.