FAQs

The U.S. Copyright Act grants a statutory copyright license to cable television systems for the retransmission to their subscribers of over-the-air television and radio broadcast stations – including public television stations.  In exchange for the license, cable operators pay statutory royalties to the Copyright Office. The statutory license permits cable systems to carry broadcast signals while compensating copyright owners for the public performance of their works and allows cable operators to complement the carriage of local broadcast signals with distant signal programming that is generally unavailable in local markets.

The three judge  Copyright Royalty Board (“CRB”) hold hearings to allocate Cable Retransmission Royalties to copyright owners whose works were included in a qualifying distant transmission and who filed a timely claim for royalties. These copyright owners generally fall within eight claimant categories, and public television is one of those claimant categories. PBS represents public television’s interests before the Copyright Royalty Board, receives the royalties allocated to public television, the distributes those funds to those claimants entitled to funds. Allocation of the royalties collected occurs in one of two ways. In the first instance, the Judges may allocate royalties by approving a negotiated settlement among the claimant groups or, if all claimants do not reach agreement with respect to the royalties, the CRB must conduct a hearing to determine the allocation of any royalties that remain in controversy.

If you are the rightsholder of a program that was broadcast on a signal that was re-transmitted, you may be eligible for Cable Retransmission Royalties. Rightsholders who believe they may be eligible must file a claim with the Copyright Royalty Board. Please see additional information for filing a claim with the Copyright Royalty Board at https://www.crb.gov/claims/. These claims must be filed between July 1 and July 31 of the year following the year for which you believe you are owed royalties (e.g., claims for royalties for 2020 programming MUST be filed with the CRB between July 1 and July 31 of 2021.)

Every July the Copyright Royalty Board accepts claim registrations for the previous calendar year. To file a claim visit the Copyright Royalty Board at https://www.crb.gov/claims/.

The Copyright Royalty Board has implemented an application, called eCRB, to electronically file royalties claims. All parties having the technological capability must file all documents with the Copyright Royalty Board through eCRB.

After registering with eCRB, fill out the claims form to submit a claim (single or joint) for Copyright Royalty Board review. You will be asked to provide filer information, copyright owner information, primary contact for the claim, and a general statement of the owner’s work(s). Filers can view the status of submitted claims on their eCRB dashboards and will receive status change notifications by email. The claim is officially filed when approved by the Copyright Royalty Board.

The eCRB is a U.S. government site not affiliated with or operated by PBS.  For questions related to the eCRB site, please contact the CRB Support team. Below is their contact information for CRB:

• Email: cCRBSupport@egov.com
• Phone: 703-841-6386 (M-Th 8AM-6PM, F 8AM-5PM)
• Web: https://app.crb.gov/help/index (includes support chat)

The Copyright Royalty Board allocates and distributes cable royalties among eight categories of claimants: public television, commercial television, movies/syndicated shows, live team sports, music, Canadian, devotional, and national public radio PBS receives and distributes the royalties for programs that were broadcast on public television stations and re-transmitted to distant subscribers.

The Copyright Royalty Board updates on distribution can be found on it’s website at https://www.crb.gov/distribution/.

Additionally, upcoming deadlines and payment updates can be found on a user’s dashboard.

Yes, program submissions are processed through the Cable Royalties web portal. Users must submit a list of titles they are asserting rights for as well as a document confirmation of an accepted claim filing with the Copyright Royalty Board.

Additional information about how to register can be found on the Why Register page.

Cable Retransmission Royalties are typically released by the Copyright Royalty Board in two distributions. The first “partial” distribution has historically been released to PBS and distributed to rightsholders a few years following the broadcasts at issue. The second “final” distribution typically follows a few years after the first distribution once the royalty share allocations have been determined through litigation or settlement. Funds allocated to works with competing claims may be excluded from these distributions and set aside pending resolution under PBS conflict procedures.

The PBS notice means PBS identified multiple parties claiming royalties for the same title, therefore, PBS may withhold the amount of royalties attributable to the title until PBS is notified by all parties that there is a resolution regarding which party will receive the distribution of funds.

The PBS written notice generally will include, but is not limited to:

• • The title of the work or works at issue;
  • The year or years of royalty payment at issue;
  • The names of all parties claiming authority to collect royalties for the same title;
  • Contact information of all parties; and
  • The deadline to reach a mutually agreeable resolution, typically sixty (60) days.

PBS created the following guidelines and resolution scenarios to assist claimants involved in a conflict with the resolution .

Please read the guidelines and resolution scenarios in their entirety to assist you in reaching a resolution to the noted title conflict.

PBS retains the funds until the parties determine how to distribute the funds.

Upon receipt by PBS of a resolution notice, executed by the parties involved in the title conflict, PBS will distribute the royalty funds according to the written, mutually agreed terms of the resolution.

If there is no mutually agreed upon resolution by the parties involved in the title conflict, PBS will follow the procedures and distribute the funds as described in the resolution scenarios.

A mutually agreed resolution should be in writing, executed by all parties, detailing:

• The terms of the agreement;
• A statement addressing that each party agrees with the resolution reached;
• The royalty year(s) resolved for each title at issue;
• How PBS should disperse the royalties to the parties; and
• Directions to PBS for future distributions of royalties.

Upon receipt of this written notice, PBS will close the conflict resolution procedure and distribute the royalties for the title at the next applicable distribution in accordance with the mutually agreed resolution.

The written mutually agreed resolution received by PBS will continue for future distributions unless the parties specifically notify PBS otherwise.

Parties must notify PBS in writing of any changes to future distributions.

A party may request an extension from PBS in writing.

A party seeking an extension should send a written request to PBS and the other notified parties detailing the exact reasons for an extension.

An extension continues for a maximum of sixty (60) days.

After registering for an account, Users are able to submit a list of titles for any open royalty year within their User Dashboard. To register program(s), follow these steps:

1. Select Royalty Year tab and choose the calendar year for title submission. Click “Begin” to open a new submission; if Users have already started a Royalty Submission they will be asked to “edit” the submission. Users may only submit one title list per year and will need to submit a list of titles each year.
2. Users may add titles three different ways: 1) manually enter program information in a form, 2) bulk upload a list of titles, or 3) add a title from a previous year by selecting to clone the information in the Users Program Library
3. Users should attach a confirmation of their filing with the CRB; this will ensure the programming match is not unduly delayed.
4. When the list of titles is complete, Users select “Next” on the bottom right. If Users are not finished but would like to save their work, Users can select “Save” and revisit the work at a later time.
5. After selecting “Next” Users can submit the year by confirm the information provided is accurate and then selecting “Submit”.

Once a royalty year is submitted, Users can check the status on their User Dashboard.

Passwords do not expire. Contact cablecopyrightroyalties@pbs.org if you need a reset.

Passwords must be at least 6 characters and include one number and one special character. Multiple failed attempts may lock your account—wait one hour before retrying. If issues persist, contact Cable Copyright Staff for a reset.

You may receive the invalid title error because the title is new and is not in the database yet. If that is the case, please enter the full title. You may also receive the invalid title error if your tile does not match the database. Please choose your title as it populates in the title field.

Please enter all titles you own copyright for. Including local programs, series and documentaries.

Your processed submission may still have a status of pending if there were unresolved errors.

You should submit All programs you own copyright for. PBS will match titles based on Gracenote data.

The PBS Web Portal is closed for editing before processing begins for the current copyright year. Reach out to the Cable Copyright Royalty Staff to submit titles for a closed copyright year.

If you own copyright for All Seasons and All episodes you can claim ALL in your submission. You must create a submission for each Royalty Year.

Presenting stations are responsible for claiming the 5% they are eligible for. PBS does not have insight into that information.

The PBS Portal can have only one login. If you have a change in personnel, please reach out to the Cable Copyright Royalty Team to update the login information. We are currently working with our developer to allow for read only access for multiple users and we hope to offer that option soon.

Yes, please submit any and all programs that you own copyright for.

Presenting Stations and Producers can make their submissions separately or together coordinate with your producer. If more than 100% for any program is claimed, it will trigger a conflict, and we will reach out to each claimant.

If you are claiming an individual episode enter the NOLA Code in the Episode Name field.

All claimed programs will be accessible in your library.

All titles must be submitted each year. We encourage you to submit all programs each year.

Do not create a new portal profile. To maintain consistent access to your library, continue with your current portal profile. Contact the Cable Copyright Royalty Staff if you need help with your password.

Yes, you need to submit programs each year. We recommend submitting from your library each year.

Unfortunately, at this time there is no work around for this problem. We understand that this is time-consuming and have brought this issue up with our technical team. In the meantime, you may want to enter your submission as a batch.

You may receive the invalid title error because the title is new and is not in the database yet. If that is the case, please enter the full title. You may also receive the invalid title error if your tile does not match the database. Please choose your title as it populates in the title field. You can submit your programs with the invalid title message. The title will update when the calculation runs and the error will resolve.

The warranty and PayMode forms need to be filled out in order to be established as a vendor. It only needs to be filled out one time.

You should enter all programs you can claim copyright for. It is in your best interest to be as comprehensive as possible.

You should enter all programs you can claim copyright for. It is in your best interest to be as comprehensive as possible.

You should enter all programs you can claim copyright for. It is in your best interest to be as comprehensive as possible.

Previous Royalty Years are closed and cannot be edited. If you have programs from previous years that you believe may be eligible for royalties; please reach out to the Royalties team for assistance. We are continuously researching unclaimed titles to get the payments sent to the appropriate payee.

It has been a PBS historical practice. Stations will get 5% to recover investment in the programming. You can confirm with the producer to ensure they claim 95% to avoid a conflict.

Royalty years 2012 and 2013 are closed and fully distributed. The US Copyright Office has released partial distributions of funds from royalty years 2014 through 2021. For various reasons, including retaining funds for expenses for the potential hearings to resolve disputes among the payees and to avoid having to claw back funds from payees, we generally do not pay out funds from one royalty year until the US Copyright Office releases the funds for the next royalty year. If we receive 2022 funds this calendar year, then we would plan to distribute 2021 funds in the summer of 2026.

The CRB has asked for procedural filings for the next hearing for years 2018-2021, but we do not yet have a hearing schedule. Please note that despite our best efforts, PTV and the other allocation phase parties have been unable to reach a settlement agreement to resolve the outstanding controversies for these years, so the parties have informed the Copyright Royalty Board that a proceeding will be necessary to resolve these controversies. Please note that due to our efforts in the hearings for 2010-2013 and 2014-2017 – and even with the errors for 2014-2017 currently on appeal – the Board decided to award PTV the highest allocation percentage for 2017 of any of the claimant groups, and the highest shares during this time period that we have ever received in the over 40-year history of these proceedings. We thus anticipate that we will need to take an active role in the 2018-2021 litigation to protect PTV’s interests and share value, and we are holding funds for expenses based on those we had for 2014-2017.

This distribution is Cable Retransmission Royalties. This distribution does not include digital or satellite content.

The Cable Copyright Royalty calculation compiles data from Cable Data Corporation, Gracenote and Neilson.

The Cover Letter and Statement will be sent to the email address in the PBS Web Portal Profile. Please reach out to the Cable Copyright Royalties Staff if you have an additional contact you would like to receive the statements.