Movie Licensing Group MPLC Names New CEO

The Motion Picture Licensing Corp. has named president P.J.
Kuyper Jr. CEO of the licensing organization.

He succeeds his father, MPLC founder Peter Kuyper, who
remains chairman of the board.

MPLC is the
independent agency that issues the public performance license for movie and TV
studio content. That is the blanket license required by associations, libraries,
churches, camp grounds and others for public performances of copyrighted
content. Any performance outside the home, whether or not it is a nonprofit or
charges for the viewing, needs a license. There is an exemption for educational
instruction, but it is narrowly defined, as MPLC points out. For example,
preschools must get a license (which costs between $100 and $255 annually,
according to size of student population), it says, since the exemption is only
for academic institutions using it for instruction, not for entertainment uses.

MPLC represents the work of over 400 TV and movie studios
and independent producers, providing more than 450,000 such public performance
licenses.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.