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.