
Music Modernization Act about to become U.S. Law? - chrisweekly
Traditionally, the music industry (i.e. the RIAA and similar entities) has faced opposition from the internet crowd (EFF et al) on questions of copyright. This time around there didn&#x27;t seem to be much of a fuss. How big a deal is the MMA?<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pastemagazine.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2018&#x2F;09&#x2F;mma-passes-house.html
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EADGBE
This is huge for session musicians; all the people who lead normal lives but
play guitar or drums for Florida Georgia Line, Bon Jovi, Alice Cooper,
keyboards for Eminem and pretty much any pop or country-pop recording today
that contains real instruments.

Even the normal people behind the studio console recording desk (Think Alan
Parson producing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, before he got "big" on
his own).

I'd bet members of The Wrecking Crew[1], though modest, would have really
benefited from a system like this. Though they were so busy recording all the
hits from the 60's and 70's the rates they made may have seemed fair at the
time.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrecking_Crew_(music)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrecking_Crew_\(music\))

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emodendroket
I am a little unclear what it means for various digital music services though.
There is going to be a single authority they all deal with... does that affect
who gets streaming rights or what the rates are?

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EADGBE
I like GRAMMY's overview of it a lot.

[https://www.grammy.com/advocacy/learn/music-modernization-
ac...](https://www.grammy.com/advocacy/learn/music-modernization-act)

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emodendroket
The article itself links to a description of the proposed changes:
[https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/09/music-
moderni...](https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/09/music-
modernization-act-passes-the-senate.html)

It sounds like SiriusXM is a big loser here; I had no idea that pre-1975 music
could be played royalty-free. Guess that helps explain all the oldies
stations.

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EADGBE
*1972

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emodendroket
My mistake.

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walterbell
Does SoundExchange have competitors? Seems to be a U.S. commercial entity that
will administer international music rights, rather than a government or non-
profit org.

Ideally, the industry-standard database and accounting systems would be based
on auditable open-source software, where the playback data used to calculate
payments is tamper-resistant and replicated.

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gcb0
bgm, emi, rca...

most of my musicians and producers acquaintances have never mentioned
soundexchange involved in a music royalties transaction. Ever. I guess it only
matters to music distribution inside the usa, while the others cover usa and
international.

