NEIGHBOURING RIGHTS
ALSO CALLED: RELATED RIGHTS · RIGHTS OF PERFORMERS AND PRODUCERS
DEFINITION
Neighbouring rights are the rights held by performers, record producers, and broadcasters in a recording or broadcast, separate from the copyright held by the composition's author. They are a distinct legal category in most of the world, though the US does not formally recognise them under that name.
WHAT IT MEANS IN PRACTICE
In the EU and most other jurisdictions, neighbouring rights entitle performers and producers to remuneration when a recording is publicly broadcast or performed, collected through societies separate from those handling composition royalties.
The US achieves a similar practical outcome through a different route: SoundExchange collects digital performance royalties for sound recordings under a specific statutory provision, but the US has never adopted a general public performance right for terrestrial radio play of sound recordings, unlike the EU, which means US session musicians and labels get paid for satellite and internet radio play but not traditional AM/FM broadcast.
A session musician who plays on a hit record but has no writing credit typically earns nothing from composition royalties, but may be entitled to neighbouring rights income if the track is broadcast, at least in jurisdictions that fully recognise the concept.
This is one of the clearest US/EU divergences in music law, and it regularly surprises European artists who tour or license into the US expecting broadcast income that the American system does not generate.
AN EXAMPLE
A German session drummer plays on a track that becomes a European radio hit. Through Germany's neighbouring rights collection system he receives a performer's royalty every time the track airs, an income stream that would not exist in the same form if the same song were only played on US terrestrial radio.
WATCH OUT
American performers often assume neighbouring rights income exists everywhere the same way SoundExchange payments do at home, and are surprised by how differently European systems are structured.
LAST REVIEWED