Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies
The Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies, Inc. (AARC) is the US collective that represents featured artists and recording companies both domestically and abroad in the areas of hometaping/private copy royalties and rental royalties. AARC, a nonprofit organization, was formed to collect and distribute Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA) royalties to featured recording artists and sound recording copyright owners (usually record companies).
AARC is overseen by a board of thirteen (13) artist representatives, which include some of top artist lawyers and managers, and thirteen (13) record company representatives, which include executives of both major and independent labels. Representing both the artist community and recording industry, AARC looks after their mutual interests. It currently represents over 67,000 artists and 400 record companies (which translates to over 6,300 labels, including all major record company labels in the US).
AARC Summary and Foreign Royalties
Prior to 1992, there were no provisions in US law for recovery of royalties lost due to hometaping, although other countries included such protections in their copyright laws as early as 1965. Passage of AHRA provided for this recovery to be carried out within the US, similar to foreign copyright laws. Following the successful administration of AHRA royalties in the United States, AARC moved toward the administration of foreign hometaping royalties for US-based artists.
AARC has negotiated hometaping agreements with the following foreign collectives: -Japan’s CPRA (reciprocal featured recording artists hometaping and rental agreement) -Japan’s RIAJ (reciprocal Indy labels hometaping agreement) -Spain’s AIE (reciprocal featured recording artists hometaping agreement) -Netherlands’ SENA (reciprocal featured recording artists and Indy labels hometaping agreements) -Ireland’s RAAP (reciprocal featured recording artists hometaping agreement) -The United Kingdom’s PPL (reciprocal featured recording artists hometaping agreement)
AARC also administers foreign rental royalties for its artist members. It negotiated a landmark agreement with CPRA for the distribution of Japanese record rental royalties to entitled artists on US recordings. This agreement guaranteed US performers entitlement to royalties for rental of their works in Japan. The agreement stems from provisions in the TRIPS Agreement, an international trade-related agreement to protect intellectual property.
Formation of AARC follows the pattern established in other countries where hometaping royalties are collectively administered, such as Spain, Ireland, Japan, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In these countries, the artist community and the record companies have chosen to work together in establishing a simple, efficient and cost-effective means of distributing the collected royalties.
AARC Board
Overseen by a board of thirteen (13) artist representatives and thirteen (13) record company representatives, AARC provides equal representation to the artist community and recording industry, looking after their mutual interests. AARC currently represents over 67,000 artists and 400 record companies (which translates to over 6,300 labels including all the major record company labels in the US). AARC is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, just south of Washington, DC. Linda R. Bocchi is the Executive Director.