Michael Einhorn addresses the precedents, factors, and practices that led to the 2001 motion to amend the monopolistic licensing practices associated with performance rights organizations. Music licensing had grown to a billion dollar industry and two organizations, ASCAP and BMI, controlled 97 percent of American compositions in their catalogs. ASCAP generated a substantial amount of its license revenues from blanket licenses, 45 percent from television and 36 percent from radio. The decree replaced this "all or nothing" policy and allowed broadcasters more competitive substitutes to the previous blanket contracts. In past antitrust litigation, ASCAP's blanket licenses have been upheld because they were considered non-exclusive and its license fees were under the surveillance of the district court. Previous cases could only speculate as to the cost saving benefits that would derive from the injunction of blanket licensing without offering empirical support. Further weakening the argument was the fact that the markups of individual program licenses, in part because of blanket licensing, made the blanket policies seem reasonable.

The new decree is considered an improvement to save shareholders in the broadcast industry considerable amounts through competition. However, the decree also receives criticism for being too optimistic in its assessment of the health of competition in the market for performing rights organizations. ASCAP and BMI do not currently operate under administrative rules that can consistently adjust blanket license fees in response to differing uses of their catalogs. Consequently they lack the financial ability to rely on market-based competition as a means of compensation for all songwriters.

This annotated bibliography provides a general survey of American performance rights organizations (PROs) with a variety of differing perspectives on the topic.