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https://fossforce.com/2019/04/whats-wrong-with-the-music-modernization-act/
Pretty much everyone in the music industry agreed that the rate setting process for both mechanical and streaming royalties was antiquated. Having a central location for storing publishing and master ownership information for all recordings — as well as for obtaining digital mechanical licenses — would be ideal. There also needed to be payments to heritage artists whose music is broadcast on satellite services, and a clear system for paying producers and engineers for their share of the master recording income derived from performance.
The MMA promised all that and more. The changes it brought about, however, came with a price.
The Music Modernization Act: What Is It & Why Does It Matter?
The Music Modernization act, or "MMA" creates a formalized body, run by publishers, that administers the "mechanical licensing" of compositions streamed on services like Spotify and Apple Music (we call them DSPs). It changes the procedure by which millions of songs are made available for streaming on these services and limits the liability a service can incur if it adheres to the new process. It funds the creation of a comprehensive database with buy in from all the major publishers and digital service providers. This would be the first of its kind that has active participation from the major publishers, representing a vast majority of musical works. It also creates a new evidentiary standard by which the performance rights organizations ASCAP and BMI can argue better rates for the performance of musical works on DSPs.
[...] There will be meaningful criticism of this bill. But at the end of the day, this is a good thing for our business. A consensus amongst the music community and agreement with the DSPs. Two notions that, before this bill, lived in the realm of fantasy. And a real nuts and bolts solution to, what a year ago, seemed to be an insurmountable obstacle.
So how about it fellow Soylentils? What do you think about this proposal?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday April 24 2019, @07:21PM (24 children)
I wish there was a clear, codifiable (legally) consensus on what the artists want. Not just the big names, and not just the people who dabble, but the ones who create/perform (music in this case) regularly whether they're able to make ends meet or not doing it. It seems creating and performing musicians have two separate sets of considerations in this case?
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday April 24 2019, @08:25PM
I think that is the problem. There is no way for the artists to have a consensus. There is a giant gap between the millionaires and the individuals playing in a local bar. Even if the millionaires say they want to help local music, few will support laws that cost them money. The big ones that are in bed with the record companies might moan that they are "slaves" to the system, but that doesn't sound so bad when you are filthy rich.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 5, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday April 24 2019, @10:30PM
I don't particularly care what the artists want. Take Metallica for instance. A gold plated Ferrari isn't enough, so to protect their IP they're all for the loss of our privacy, civil rights, and security. So many of the big players are like that, and supportive of DRM control schemes.
In the absence of IP, we have what is natural and correct; The Public Domain. Information is free to all of humanity equally. So anything we give the artists is one heck of an entitlement, and it is not nearly spelled out clearly enough the temporary and transient nature of that entitlement. They get an inch, and then want a million miles.
I'm willing to support a system that balances our civil rights against transient entitlements designed to provide the The Public Domain with desirable content. That goes just as much for medical and scientific knowledge that it does for music. In order to receive a copyright, you register for it. As mentioned with others, you can choose between boiler plate legal contracts to offer. What I want to see is the indie artists not having to sell out to Big Music, but being able to register their songs and their terms with a national directory.
Better yet, allow that national directory to accept payments, donations, and requests for specific licenses. Absent all the bloat that the entrenched publishers/distributors represent, it could be quite profitable while allowing lower costs to be set by the artists. After a reasonable period of time when the entitlement to offer licenses expires, the national directory still accepts donations. When the artists die, the registered works literally transfer to The Public Domain, another national directory that instead clearly protects works from overreaching entities that would abuse the systems in place to control and profit from information.
In this system the artists spend pennies on the dollar to afford payment processing and accessing the system, versus receiving pennies on the dollar from greedy Big Music that will violate your privacy and rights to peaceful enjoyment of property. There is nothing morally or ethically superior to the system of IP we have now, and all I care about is encouraging the artists to continue producing content while giving up none of my privacy or civil rights.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by khallow on Wednesday April 24 2019, @11:06PM (19 children)
There is. It's called "copyright". The artists do what they want with stuff that they have copyright to.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday April 25 2019, @12:13AM (1 child)
So ... what do mid-range artists, you know, actually want? It seems to vary depending on the synthesis, production, and distribution technologies they grew up with.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Thursday April 25 2019, @09:54AM
Whatever they want. At this point, we no longer have to care.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @02:02AM
no you dumb-dumb, copyright is disney's and other big guys' consensus
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:49PM (15 children)
Copyright often gets in the way of artists when it forbids an artist to build on another artist's work.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 26 2019, @01:26AM (14 children)
It's supposed to get in the way. But it doesn't forbid the second artist from building on the work of the first. They just have to get permission. Plenty of people get that. You wouldn't otherwise have covers [wikipedia.org] of existing copyrighted songs, and movies of books and comics.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Friday April 26 2019, @04:52AM (13 children)
I was under the impression that artists new to the industry tended to have less success in negotiating permission.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 26 2019, @11:39AM (12 children)
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Friday April 26 2019, @02:13PM (11 children)
It's a problem because your use of the word "just" and the phrase "Plenty of people" implied that negotiating permission is a practical solution for artists, including those new to the industry.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 26 2019, @02:26PM (10 children)
Sorry, I still don't see the problem. The avenue exists and is reasonable. And contrary to your assertion, I do believe that negotiating permission is a practical solution even for those new to the industry.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Friday April 26 2019, @04:39PM (9 children)
What solution would you offer to an artist who gets a blanket denial or a go-away price from several other artists or their publishers in a row?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 27 2019, @01:57AM (8 children)
This blanket denial may be a strong indication that they suck. Either do something else or work on that, say by pushing their limits with different approaches. And sometimes, it just takes more persistence. But to say that it's the fault of copyright is erroneous. Big businesses will always be better at derivative works than you. In the absence of copyright, they'll be able to copy and exploit your works like the currently do, without having to compensate you in the process.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday April 27 2019, @03:35AM (7 children)
Could you elaborate on what "something else" you had in mind? Did you mean, for example, that artists ought to begin by producing completely original works as opposed to derivative works under license?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 27 2019, @09:49AM (1 child)
If the problem is that you suck, then creating your own completely original work (or derivative works in a different genre) can help you figure out to create derivative works better. That is, doing something different to help you do what you've been trying to do better.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday April 28 2019, @01:52AM
The skill of creating quality derivative works does not necessarily correlate with the skill of marketing your ability to create quality derivative works to prospective licensors. What steps would you recommend for those skilled in the former to also become skilled in the latter?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 27 2019, @09:56AM (4 children)
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday April 28 2019, @01:50AM (3 children)
Copyright gives an author the power to refuse to license derivative works at a reasonable royalty. Earlier, you claimed that this power to refuse does not get in the way of art. Now you claim that it does, by causing artists to stop being artists and switch to food service.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 28 2019, @02:05AM (2 children)
Again, what makes this a problem rather than just another fact? There is no one in this world whose only ability is to write a cover to Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2. If you can't get the permission, then either don't do it (or rather don't market it for profit) or wait for the copyright to expire. And if you suck so much that even the many artists who allow derivative works can't be bothered to license your work, then indeed there is food service.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday April 28 2019, @02:31AM (1 child)
Under current law, copyright significantly outlives prospective authors of derivative works. You have stated earlier that you desire to change this particular law. But because you haven't yet managed to get a bill to do so before a committee, one might claim that you suck.
I doubt the existence of "many artists who allow derivative works" whose works have "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" (Wikipedia's general notability guideline [wikipedia.org]). But if you can name a few freely licensed (such as CC BY or CC BY-SA) musical works composed in the past 50 years with which listeners among the general public are likely to be familiar, that would likely change my mind.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 28 2019, @02:53AM
Tell me about it. Nobody has handled me the keys to world power yet. Maybe I need to write another memo?
Actually, just look at songs in Wikipedia some time. They usually list the derivative works that "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".
What would be the point of the exercise? Free licenses aren't the only licenses out there. I sensed from the beginning that there was supposed to be some point to this slow development, but even now, I don't get what it is.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @03:11AM (1 child)
The artists, the real artists, are not smart enough to know what they need. They aren't being undercut by artists but the formalization of their art. Today you can literally manufacture pop artists by putting a hot young girl with decent enough pipes and cookie cutter lyrics and music. They are the new millionaires and they don't complain about studio interference either. Actual artists are going the way actual engineers go - working for someone more manipulative.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday April 25 2019, @11:59PM
Nowadays you don't even need the girl [youtube.com] anymore.