I 
116TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 5140 
To amend title 17, United States Code, to narrow the category of households 
eligible to receive signals under a distant-signal satellite license, and 
for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
NOVEMBER 18, 2019 
Mr. NADLER introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on the Judiciary 
A BILL 
To amend title 17, United States Code, to narrow the cat-
egory of households eligible to receive signals under a 
distant-signal satellite license, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Satellite Television 
Community Protection and Promotion Act of 2019’’. 
SEC. 2. ELIGIBILITY TO RECEIVE SIGNALS UNDER A DIS-
TANT-SIGNAL SATELLITE LICENSE. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Section 119 of title 17, United 
States Code, is amended— 
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(1) in subsection (a)— 
(A) in paragraph (2)— 
(i) in subparagraph (A)— 
(I) by striking ‘‘signals, and’’ and 
inserting ‘‘signals,’’; and 
(II) by inserting ‘‘, and the car-
rier provides local-into-local service to 
all DMAs’’ after ‘‘receiving the sec-
ondary transmission’’; and 
(ii) in subparagraph (B)— 
(I) by striking clauses (ii) and 
(iii); and 
(II) by adding at the end the fol-
lowing: 
‘‘(ii) SHORT MARKETS.—In the case 
of secondary transmissions to households 
located in short markets, subject to clause 
(i), the statutory license shall be further 
limited to secondary transmissions of only 
those primary transmissions of network 
stations that embody the programming of 
networks not offered on the primary 
stream or the multicast stream transmitted 
by any network station in that market.’’; 
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(B) by striking paragraphs (3), (6)(E), 
(9), (10), and (13); and 
(C) by redesignating paragraphs (4), (5), 
(6), (7), (8), (11), (12), and (14) as paragraphs 
(3) through (10), respectively; 
(2) in subsection (c)(1)(E)— 
(A) by striking the comma after ‘‘in the 
agreement’’; 
(B) by striking ‘‘until December 31, 2019, 
or’’; and 
(C) by striking ‘‘, whichever is later’’ and 
inserting ‘‘until the subscriber for which the 
royalty is payable is no longer eligible to receive 
a secondary transmission pursuant to the li-
cense under this section’’; 
(3) in subsection (d)— 
(A) in paragraph (10)— 
(i) in subparagraph (D), by striking 
‘‘subsection (a)(11)’’ and inserting ‘‘sub-
section (a)(8)’’; 
(ii) by striking subparagraphs (A), 
(B), (C), and (E); 
(iii) by redesignating subparagraph 
(D) as subparagraph (A); and 
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(iv) by adding at the end the fol-
lowing: 
‘‘(B) is a subscriber located in a short 
market.’’; 
(B) by striking paragraph (13); 
(C) by redesignating paragraphs (14) and 
(15) as paragraphs (13) and (14), respectively; 
and 
(D) by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘(15) LOCAL-INTO-LOCAL
SERVICE
TO
ALL 
DMAS.—The term ‘local-into-local service to all 
DMAs’ has the meaning given such term in sub-
section (f)(7). 
‘‘(16) SHORT MARKET.—The term ‘short mar-
ket’ means a local market in which programming of 
one or more of the four most widely viewed television 
networks nationwide is not offered on either the pri-
mary stream or multicast stream transmitted by any 
network station in that market.’’; 
(4) by striking subsections (e) and (h); and 
(5) by redesignating subsections (f) and (g) as 
subsections (e) and (f). 
(b) PREVIOUSLY COVERED SUBSCRIBERS UNDER 
THE STELA REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2014.— 
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(1) IN GENERAL.—A subscriber of a satellite 
carrier who receives the secondary transmission of a 
network station under the statutory license in sec-
tion 119 of title 17, United States Code, as in effect 
on the day before the date of the enactment of this 
Act, and to whom subsection (a)(2)(B) of such sec-
tion, as amended by subsection (a), does not apply, 
shall continue to be eligible to receive that secondary 
transmission from such carrier under such license, 
and at the royalty rate established for such license 
by the Copyright Royalty Board or voluntary agree-
ment, as applicable, until the date that is the earlier 
of— 
(A) 120 days after the date of the enact-
ment of this Act; or 
(B) the date on which such carrier pro-
vides local-into-local service to all DMAs. 
(2) DEFINITIONS.—In this subsection, the 
terms ‘‘satellite carrier’’, ‘‘subscriber’’, ‘‘secondary 
transmission’’, ‘‘network station’’, and ‘‘local-into- 
local service to all DMAs’’ have the meaning given 
those terms in section 119 of title 17, United States 
Code. 
(c) CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.—Title 17, United 
States Code, is further amended— 
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(1) in section 119, as amended by subsection 
(a)— 
(A) in subsection (a)— 
(i) in paragraph (1), by striking 
‘‘paragraphs (4), (5), and (7)’’ and insert-
ing ‘‘paragraphs (3), (4), and (6)’’; and 
(ii) in paragraph (2), by striking 
‘‘paragraphs (4), (5), (6), and (7)’’ and in-
serting ‘‘paragraphs (3), (4), (5), and (6)’’; 
and 
(B) in subsection (g), by striking ‘‘sub-
section (a)(7)(B)’’ each place it appears and in-
serting ‘‘subsection (a)(5)(B)’’; and 
(2) in section 501(e), by striking ‘‘section 
119(a)(5)’’ and inserting ‘‘section 119(a)(3)’’. 
Æ 
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