Satellite Television Community Protection and Promotion Act of 2019

IB Union Calendar No. 282 116TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. R. 5140 [Report No. 116–354] To amend title 17, United States Code, to narrow the category of households eligible to receive signals under a distant-signal satellite license, and for other purposes. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES NOVEMBER 18, 2019 Mr. NADLER introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary DECEMBER 17, 2019 Reported with an amendment, committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, and ordered to be printed [Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert the part printed in italic] [For text of introduced bill, see copy of bill as introduced on November 18, 2019] VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:57 Dec 18, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6652 E:\BILLS\H5140.RH H5140 khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with BILLS 2 •HR 5140 RH A BILL To amend title 17, United States Code, to narrow the cat- egory of households eligible to receive signals under a distant-signal satellite license, and for other purposes. VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:57 Dec 18, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6652 E:\BILLS\H5140.RH H5140 khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with BILLS 3 •HR 5140 RH Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Satellite Television Com- 4 munity Protection and Promotion Act of 2019’’. 5 SEC. 2. ELIGIBILITY TO RECEIVE SIGNALS UNDER A DIS- 6 TANT-SIGNAL SATELLITE LICENSE. 7 (a) IN GENERAL.—Section 119 of title 17, United 8 States Code, is amended— 9 (1) in subsection (a)— 10 (A) in paragraph (2)— 11 (i) in subparagraph (A)— 12 (I) by striking ‘‘signals, and’’ and 13 inserting ‘‘signals,’’; 14 (II) by inserting ‘‘, and the car- 15 rier provides local-into-local service to 16 all DMAs’’ after ‘‘receiving the sec- 17 ondary transmission’’; and 18 (III) by adding at the end the fol- 19 lowing new sentence: ‘‘Failure to reach 20 an agreement with network stations to 21 retransmit their signals shall not be 22 construed to affect compliance with 23 providing local-into-local service to all 24 DMAs if the satellite carrier has the 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:57 Dec 18, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6203 E:\BILLS\H5140.RH H5140 khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with BILLS 4 •HR 5140 RH capability to retransmit such signals 1 when an agreement is reached.’’; and 2 (ii) in subparagraph (B)— 3 (I) by striking clauses (ii) and 4 (iii); and 5 (II) by adding at the end the fol- 6 lowing: 7 ‘‘(ii) SHORT MARKETS.—In the case of 8 secondary transmissions to households lo- 9 cated in short markets, subject to clause (i), 10 the statutory license shall be further limited 11 to secondary transmissions of only those 12 primary transmissions of network stations 13 that embody the programming of networks 14 not offered on the primary stream or the 15 multicast stream transmitted by any net- 16 work station in that market.’’; and 17 (iii) by adding at the end the fol- 18 lowing: 19 ‘‘(D) TEMPORARY AND LIMITED USE OF LI- 20 CENSE.— 21 ‘‘(i) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding 22 the requirement under subparagraph (A) 23 that a satellite carrier provide local-into- 24 local service to all DMAs before making a 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:57 Dec 18, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6203 E:\BILLS\H5140.RH H5140 khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with BILLS 5 •HR 5140 RH secondary transmission under the license 1 under this section, a satellite carrier that 2 does not provide local-into-local service to 3 all DMAs may make a covered transmission 4 under such license if not later than 180 5 days after the date of the enactment of the 6 Satellite Television Community Protection 7 and Promotion Act of 2019 the satellite car- 8 rier— 9 ‘‘(I) demonstrates that it has 10 acted reasonably and made a good 11 faith effort to provide local-into-local 12 service to all DMAs and that it will 13 continue to make a good faith effort to 14 provide local-into-local service to all 15 DMAs; and 16 ‘‘(II) files a Notice of Temporary 17 Limited Use with the Copyright Office 18 in accordance with clause (ii). 19 ‘‘(ii) NOTICE OF TEMPORARY LIMITED 20 USE.—A Notice of Temporary Limited Use 21 filed with the Copyright Office under this 22 subparagraph shall contain— 23 ‘‘(I) an affirmation that the car- 24 rier intends to make covered trans- 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:57 Dec 18, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6203 E:\BILLS\H5140.RH H5140 khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with BILLS 6 •HR 5140 RH missions under the license under this 1 section despite not providing local- 2 into-local service to all DMAs; 3 ‘‘(II) a signed statement that the 4 satellite carrier acted reasonably and 5 made good faith efforts to provide 6 local-into-local service to all DMAs; 7 ‘‘(III) a list of the designated 8 market areas with respect to which no 9 local-into-local service is provided by 10 the satellite carrier; and 11 ‘‘(IV) a summary of actions taken 12 by the satellite carrier to make ar- 13 rangements to provide local-into-local 14 service to all DMAs. 15 ‘‘(iii) PERIOD OF TEMPORARY AND 16 LIMITED LICENSE.— 17 ‘‘(I) INITIAL 90-DAY PERIOD.—A 18 satellite carrier that meets the require- 19 ments of this subparagraph may use 20 the license under this section to make 21 covered transmissions for a 90-day pe- 22 riod beginning on the date such carrier 23 files a Notice of Temporary Limited 24 Use with the Copyright Office. 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:57 Dec 18, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6203 E:\BILLS\H5140.RH H5140 khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with BILLS 7 •HR 5140 RH ‘‘(II) ADDITIONAL PERIODS.—The 1 initial 90-day period described under 2 clause (I) may be extended for addi- 3 tional periods of 90 days if the satellite 4 carrier files a new Notice of Tem- 5 porary Limited Use with the Copy- 6 right Office on or before the last day of 7 such initial period, and each successive 8 90-day period thereafter. 9 ‘‘(iv) AUDIT AND VERIFICATION OF NO- 10 TICES.—The Register of Copyrights shall 11 issue regulations that are similar in nature 12 to the regulations issued under subsection 13 (b)(2) to permit interested parties to verify 14 and audit Notices of Temporary Limited 15 Use filed by satellite carriers under this 16 subparagraph. 17 ‘‘(v) CHALLENGE.—Any owner of a 18 network station for which the primary 19 stream or multicast stream of that network 20 would have been transmitted by a satellite 21 carrier under the license under this section 22 but for the failure of that satellite carrier to 23 provide local-into-local service to all DMAs 24 may bring a civil action to challenge the 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:57 Dec 18, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6203 E:\BILLS\H5140.RH H5140 khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with BILLS 8 •HR 5140 RH sufficiency of the reasonable actions and 1 good faith efforts of that satellite carrier to 2 provide local-into-local service to all DMAs, 3 as such actions and efforts are described in 4 the applicable Notice of Temporary Limited 5 Use. 6 ‘‘(vi) COVERED TRANSMISSION DE- 7 FINED.—In this subparagraph, the term 8 ‘covered transmission’ means a secondary 9 transmission of a primary transmission 10 made by a network station to an unserved 11 household.’’. 12 (B) by striking paragraphs (3), (6)(E), (9), 13 (10), and (13); and 14 (C) by redesignating paragraphs (4), (5), 15 (6), (7), (8), (11), (12), and (14) as paragraphs 16 (3) through (10), respectively; 17 (2) in subsection (c)(1)(E)— 18 (A) by striking the comma after ‘‘in the 19 agreement’’; 20 (B) by striking ‘‘until December 31, 2019, 21 or’’; and 22 (C) by striking ‘‘, whichever is later’’ and 23 inserting ‘‘until the subscriber for which the roy- 24 alty is payable is no longer eligible to receive a 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:57 Dec 18, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6203 E:\BILLS\H5140.RH H5140 khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with BILLS 9 •HR 5140 RH secondary transmission pursuant to the license 1 under this section’’; 2 (3) in subsection (d)— 3 (A) in paragraph (10)— 4 (i) in subparagraph (D), by striking 5 ‘‘subsection (a)(11)’’ and inserting ‘‘sub- 6 section (a)(8)’’; 7 (ii) by striking subparagraphs (A), 8 (B), (C), and (E); 9 (iii) by redesignating subparagraph 10 (D) as subparagraph (A); and 11 (iv) by adding at the end the following: 12 ‘‘(B) is a subscriber located in a short mar- 13 ket.’’; 14 (B) by striking paragraph (13); 15 (C) by redesignating paragraphs (14) and 16 (15) as paragraphs (13) and (14), respectively; 17 and 18 (D) by adding at the end the following: 19 ‘‘(15) LOCAL-INTO-LOCAL SERVICE TO ALL 20 DMAS.—The term ‘local-into-local service to all 21 DMAs’ has the meaning given such term in subsection 22 (f)(7). 23 ‘‘(16) SHORT MARKET.—The term ‘short market’ 24 means a local market in which programming of one 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:57 Dec 18, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6203 E:\BILLS\H5140.RH H5140 khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with BILLS 10 •HR 5140 RH or more of the four most widely viewed television net- 1 works nationwide is not offered on either the primary 2 stream or multicast stream transmitted by any net- 3 work station in that market.’’; 4 (4) by striking subsections (e) and (h); and 5 (5) by redesignating subsections (f) and (g) as 6 subsections (e) and (f). 7 (b) PREVIOUSLY COVERED SUBSCRIBERS UNDER THE 8 STELA REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2014.— 9 (1) IN GENERAL.—A subscriber of a satellite car- 10 rier who receives the secondary transmission of a net- 11 work station under the statutory license in section 12 119 of title 17, United States Code, as in effect on the 13 day before the date of the enactment of this Act, and 14 to whom subsection (a)(2)(B) of such section, as 15 amended by subsection (a), does not apply, shall con- 16 tinue to be eligible to receive that secondary trans- 17 mission from such carrier under such license, and at 18 the royalty rate established for such license by the 19 Copyright Royalty Board or voluntary agreement, as 20 applicable, until the date that is the earlier of— 21 (A) 180 days after the date of the enactment 22 of this Act; or 23 (B) the date on which such carrier provides 24 local-into-local service to all DMAs. 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:57 Dec 18, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6203 E:\BILLS\H5140.RH H5140 khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with BILLS 11 •HR 5140 RH (2) DEFINITIONS.—In this subsection, the terms 1 ‘‘satellite carrier’’, ‘‘subscriber’’, ‘‘secondary trans- 2 mission’’, ‘‘network station’’, and ‘‘local-into-local 3 service to all DMAs’’ have the meaning given those 4 terms in section 119 of title 17, United States Code. 5 (c) CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.—Title 17, United 6 States Code, is further amended— 7 (1) in section 119, as amended by subsection 8 (a)— 9 (A) in subsection (a)— 10 (i) in paragraph (1), by striking 11 ‘‘paragraphs (4), (5), and (7)’’ and insert- 12 ing ‘‘paragraphs (3), (4), and (6)’’; and 13 (ii) in paragraph (2), by striking 14 ‘‘paragraphs (4), (5), (6), and (7)’’ and in- 15 serting ‘‘paragraphs (3), (4), (5), and (6)’’; 16 and 17 (B) in subsection (g), by striking ‘‘sub- 18 section (a)(7)(B)’’ each place it appears and in- 19 serting ‘‘subsection (a)(5)(B)’’; and 20 (2) in section 501(e), by striking ‘‘section 21 119(a)(5)’’ and inserting ‘‘section 119(a)(3)’’. 22 VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:57 Dec 18, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6203 E:\BILLS\H5140.RH H5140 khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with BILLS Union Calendar No. 282 116TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. R. 5140 [Report No. 116–354] A BILL To amend title 17, United States Code, to narrow the category of households eligible to receive sig- nals under a distant-signal satellite license, and for other purposes. DECEMBER 17, 2019 Reported with an amendment, committed to the Com- mittee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, and ordered to be printed VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:57 Dec 18, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6651 Sfmt 6651 E:\BILLS\H5140.RH H5140 khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with BILLS