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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday April 24 2019, @07:07PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-not-perfect-but..... dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday April 24 2019, @09:04PM (1 child)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday April 24 2019, @09:04PM (#834491) Journal

    creates a formalized body, run by publishers,

    One need not read past that. It will be run the way the publishers want it to, and thus completely freeze out any true independents from a slice of the mechanical copyright pie. The greater details in the FOSS force article make it clear that 'unclaimed funds' for mechanical royalties will be distributed after three years for works that can't be traced, instead of doing the proper thing a government would do and create a permanent escheatment until and unless the source is found. (There is no reason whatsoever that an escheatment cannot exist perpetually when administered by government).
    Just another step in "lawmakers throw away what we hold them responsible for to the awaiting arms of industry who are glad to profit from it."

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @12:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @12:37AM (#834570)

    It'd be less of an issue if copyright didn't last effectively forever as it does now.

    I don't like how the current systems divvy up proceeds. They take their pool for untracked services, and they dish it out by popularity across the service. That means the obscure song you listen to ends up paying into the fund of the super popular Beiber hit that you've been actively avoiding.