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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: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday April 25 2019, @03:41AM (2 children)

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 25 2019, @03:41AM (#834605) Homepage Journal

    For photos, the metadata in image files should provide enough copyright identification.
    It should be forbidden to remove such copyright metadata in the course of image processing.
    (There will probably be exceptions for fair use and the like)

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:39AM (#834614)

    You guys seem to labor under the idea that copyright exists to give The People more stuff to enjoy (like it reads in the law text). However the matter of the fact is it's sole purpose is to give Disney more of your hard earned money, forever and ever.

    If the purpose was to make more stuff available, there would be a government Department of Public Domain that would each year distribute the new works which just entered public domain. But no, instead we get copyright term extensions. It's not a contract if there is only one side present at the negotiations. It's an edict.

  • (Score: 2) by pipedwho on Thursday April 25 2019, @06:16PM

    by pipedwho (2032) on Thursday April 25 2019, @06:16PM (#834866)

    That would imply every single image gets to be copyrighted. I’m saying that registration provides a way to properly expire works that are abandoned by the creators of no longer hold sufficient value to remain protected. Just throwing down metadata perpetuates the same problems we have today. This applies to all forms of digital and analogue media.