by Jo-Anne McGettrick

Dennis Dreith – Administrator of the Film Musicians Secondary Markets Fund – right? Right!

However Dennis is also the Administrator of the AFM/AFTRA Intellectual Property Rights Distribution Fund and I have been happily engaged as the Manager of that Fund since its inception in 1999. We distribute royalties to non-featured musicians, music preparation personnel and non-featured vocalists.

One of the funds in our fold is the Japanese Rental Royalties. Because of the high price of CD’s in Japan, a year after a CD has been commercially released it is able to be rented, much like video rentals here in the States. Thus far, we have mailed out two disbursements, both in 2001 to those participants who performed on sound recordings which were rented in Japan in 1996 and 1997.

Another one of our funds is the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA). To date, this fund represents SoundScan charted albums from 1992 to 2000. The AHRA imposes an obligation on importers and manufacturers of digital audio recording devices and media to submit a royalty payment set by statute to the Register of Copyrights, and is then turned over to us for royalty disbursements.

Our webpage raroyalties.org has numerous FAQ’s for each of these funds, as well as online inquiry forms.

The Japanese Rental Royalties also contains a list of those sound recordings which were rented in Japan and eligible for royalty disbursements.

By summer’s end, we hope to have mailed out our third disbursement which will represent sound recordings rented in Japan in 1998 – 1999 as well as AHRA royalties for the years 1992 – 2000.

Additionally, we currently are in receipt of royalties from the Netherlands for AHRA and likewise are in discussions with Spain.

Please take a moment to peruse our webpage, feel free to send me an e-mail from that site or give me a call at (818) 755-7780.

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