Edison Bros. Stores, Inc. v. Broadcast Music, Inc.

• Citation: 954 F.2d 1419
• Decision Date: 13 January 1992
• Docket Number: No. 91-2115,91-2115
• Parties: 1992 Copr.L.Dec. P 26,863, 21 U.S.P.Q.2d 1440 EDISON BROTHERS STORES, INC., Appellee, v. BROADCAST MUSIC, INC., Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 1419

954 F.2d 1419

1992 Copr.L.Dec. P 26,863, 21 U.S.P.Q.2d 1440

EDISON BROTHERS STORES, INC., Appellee, v. BROADCAST MUSIC, INC., Appellant.

No. 91-2115.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Nov. 7, 1991.

Decided Jan. 13, 1992.

Johnathan Zavin, New York City, argued (Scott M. Martin and Judith Saffer, New York City, Jim J. Shoemake and Kurt S. Odenwald, St. Louis, Mo., on brief), for appellant.

Michael A. Kahn, San Francisco, Cal., argued (Katharine Livingston and J. Daniel Sharp, San Francisco, Cal., and Robert T. Haar, St. Louis, Mo., on brief), for appellee.

Before McMILLIAN, JOHN R. GIBSON and BOWMAN, Circuit Judges.

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge.

Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), appeals the District Court's ¹ decision to grant summary judgment in favor of Edison Brothers Stores, Inc., in Edison's suit for a declaratory judgment that its stores qualify for an exemption from the vesting of exclusive rights of performance in the owners of copyrighted works. See Edison Bros. Stores, Inc. v. Broadcast Music, Inc., 760 F.Supp. 767 (E.D.Mo.1991). We affirm. ²

The relevant facts are not in dispute. BMI is a performing rights organization that collectively licenses, as assignee of the rights of its copyright-holding clients (primarily publishers and songwriters), the public performance of such clients' copyrighted works.

Edison owns a chain of approximately 2500 retail clothing and shoe stores doing business as Chandlers, Jeans West, Fashion Conspiracy, Size 5-7-9 Shops, J. Riggins, Bakers, the Wild Pair, and others. Most of Edison's stores operate a single radio receiver with two attached shelf speakers to play radio broadcasts in the stores for the enjoyment of employees and customers. The equipment is simple and inexpensive. Edison has promulgated a radio usage policy and requires the adherence of these stores to the rules therein. The District Court summarized the policy as follows:

1. Only simple, low grade radio-only receivers are to be used.

2. Only two speakers may be attached to a radio receiver.

3. The speakers must be placed within 15 feet of the receiver.

4. Speakers that are built into the walls or ceilings must not be used. Only portable box speakers are allowed.

5. [Edison will a]dvise each store manager that they are not to use tapes, cassettes, or any other type of recording equipment in their stores. They are to play the radio only.

Edison Bros. Stores, 760 F.Supp. at 769-70, quoted in Brief of Appellee at 7. BMI has submitted no evidence that any of the Edison stores to which the radio usage policy applies have failed to comply with it.

Approximately 220 of Edison's stores have more sophisticated audio and video systems or subscribe to commercial music services. Edison pays license fees to BMI or to commercial services licensed by BMI or other performing rights organizations for the music played in these stores. In recent years BMI approached Edison about licensing the remaining stores in its chain. Negotiations between the two parties evidently broke down, and Edison filed suit in District Court seeking declaratory relief. The court, agreeing with Edison's position, declared that the radio systems in use at Edison's unlicensed stores qualified for the so-called homestyle exemption to the exclusive performance rights that copyright owners enjoy under federal law. BMI appeals.

In reviewing on appeal a district court's decision to grant summary judgment, we are governed by the same standard that governed the court below. McCuen v. Polk County, Iowa, 893 F.2d 172, 173 (8th Cir.1990). We therefore will affirm the District Court unless we find there remain genuine issues of material fact, in which case a trial would be required, or that the District Court erred in deciding that Edison was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). BMI and Edison both filed motions for summary judgment and thus apparently agree there are no disputed issues of material fact. Therefore we are left with a purely legal question involving interpretation of the Copyright Act.

I.

Under the Copyright Act, the owner of the copyright of a musical work has the exclusive right, among other rights, to perform the copyrighted work publicly. 17 U.S.C.A. § 106(4) (West Supp.1991). The Act, however, provides exemptions for certain performances. 17 U.S.C. § 110 (1988). Among the acts that are not "infringements of copyright" is the following:

communication of a transmission embodying a performance or display of a work by the public reception of the transmission on a single receiving apparatus of a kind commonly used in private homes, unless--

(A) a direct charge is made to see or hear the transmission; or

(B) the transmission thus received is further transmitted to the public[.]

Id. § 110(5). The issue before the District Court, and now before us, is whether Edison's 2000-plus radio receivers, each with two attached speakers and each operated in a different store, qualify for this homestyle exemption. BMI insists that, for several reasons, the exemption is unavailable to Edison.

Clearly, each radio in an Edison store is a "single receiving apparatus" and is "communicat[ing] ... a transmission embodying a performance ... of a work by the public reception of the transmission." The receivers in the Edison stores are tuned to local radio stations and play anything and everything, including musical works, that the radio stations broadcast while the stores' receivers are on. No "direct charge is made to see or hear the transmission," and there is no contention that the broadcast is "further transmitted to the public" beyond the stores.

The sticking point for the parties, and the basis for BMI's first argument, is Edison's multiple locations, each employing a single receiver and two speakers in conformity with the company's radio usage policy. BMI argues that the statutory requirement that the transmission be received "on a single receiving apparatus of a kind commonly used in private homes" is not satisfied by this arrangement; although BMI concedes that an individual receiver and speaker set-up in one store may fit within the exemption, it takes the position that Edison lost section 110(5) protection as soon as it installed the second receiving apparatus in another of its stores. BMI contends that the statute requires that we consider the equipment of any one owner in toto, and not on a per-store basis, when we decide whether or not the exemption applies and find (as of course we would if we did as BMI suggests) that Edison is not in fact operating a "single receiving apparatus" within the meaning of the statute.

We cannot accept BMI's interpretation of section 110(5), as it defies the plain language of the statute. Section 110(5) does not say that a person, company, or other entity must own or operate only a single receiver to qualify for the exemption; it refers to "the communication of a transmission embodying a performance ... of a work" (emphasis added). We think it obvious that the language refers to a single location. "The statute does not ask how many receiving apparatuses were used to receive a number of different works. The language of the statute thus strongly suggests that the proper analysis should be limited to the area where a single work is performed." Broadcast Music, Inc. v. Claire's Boutiques, Inc., 949 F.2d 1482, 1490 (7th Cir.1991). ³ If we were to embrace BMI's argument and reach the result it suggests, the equipment used in any Edison store, including those stores that have more sophisticated equipment, would be attributable to each of the other stores owned by Edison for purposes of the Copyright Act. Such a result does not comport with the statutory language.

We agree with the District Court "that it is not appropriate to focus on the number of stores involved, but rather on whether each store duplicates the requirements of the homestyle exception." Edison Bros. Stores, 760 F.Supp. at 770. There is no evidence in the record that any of Edison's unlicensed stores fail to meet the statutory criteria for entitlement to the section 110(5) exemption.

BMI claims that the legislative history of the exemption supports its multiple receiver argument. Our reading of the legislative history reveals nothing that convinces us that each store in a retail chain should not be considered for the homestyle exemption individually, as seems plain from the straightforward language of section 110(5). We certainly will not use the legislative history to which BMI directs our attention as a basis for reading into the statute limitations its language does not express. See Union Bank v. Wolas, --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 527, 530, 116 L.Ed.2d 514, 521 (1991) ("Given the clarity of the statutory text, respondent's burden of persuading us that Congress intended to create or to preserve a special rule [not expressed in the statutory language] is exceptionally heavy.").

II.

BMI also bases its next argument on the legislative history of the enactment. BMI is not asking us to use legislative history to assist in clarifying an ambiguous statute; we are being asked to use legislative history to rewrite the section 110(5) exemption to add new requirements.

BMI contends that the physical size of Edison's stores removes the chain and its individual stores from the protection of the section 110(5) exemption. ⁴ In order to reach such a result, BMI would have us read into the exemption a requirement that total space in the stores must not exceed 1055 square feet, with the area open to the public not to exceed 620 square feet. Brief of Appellant at 9, 11. The basis for this argument is a Supreme Court decision in a copyright case antedating the enactment of section 110(5) and the Report of the House Judiciary Committee relating to that section.

In Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151, 95 S.Ct. 2040, 45 L.Ed.2d 84 (1975), the Supreme Court had before it the issue of...