The Japan Council of Performers' Organizations (commonly known by its abbreviation in Japanese, GEIDANKYO) is a non-commercial juridical entity organized by the organizations of performing artists including actors, musicians, dancers and variety entertainers. It is engaged in diverse activities intended to promote performing arts and enhance the social status of performers. As a body officially designated by the Commissioner of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, GEIDANKYO collects and distributes performers' fees for the secondary use of commercial phonograms and remunerations for rental phonograms. To address the enormous increase in the workload of managing performers' rights and collecting and distributing charges, remunerations, compensations and so forth along with a dramatic expansion in the use of musical and audiovisual works by communications media, GEIDANKYO in 1993 launched the Center for Performers' Rights Administration (CPRA), the only organization in Japan for the administration of performers' rights, with the cooperation of the bodies of right owners and other concerned parties (the Japan Association of Music Enterprises, abbreviated to JAME, and The Federation of Music Producers Japan, abbreviated to FMP). In December 1998, the administrative mechanism of CPRA was reinforced, guided by the three key concepts of "independence, expertise and transparency," and the center was further joined by two more related mechanisms, Music People's Nest(MPN) and Performers' Rights Entrustment(PRE). Today, CPRA is engaged in the "administration of performers' rights under the Copyright Law and other laws" and "activities to protect and expand the rights of performers."