
Music industry hails passage of the Music Modernization Act - friedbeef
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-music-modernization-act-20181011-story.html
======
sethhochberg
I work for an internet radio company and deal a lot with streaming royalties,
I'll try to offer some more context here:

\- "groups representing (musicians)" from the article is, in this case, almost
certainly referring to Performing Rights Organizations (aka PROs). The PROs
are groups like ASCAP, BMI, and SoundExchange who manage the business of
collecting and distributing royalties to artists. When you make a public
performance of a work, or when you broadcast it in some way, you're required
to obtain license from one or more of these PROs and report your usage of the
work to them. They then determine what the artist is owed based on your usage.

\- big service providers in the industry, like Spotify or Pandora, can make
"digital direct deals" with labels and content suppliers. This lets them skip
parts of the process of reporting their royalties to PROs, and instead they
negotiate and pay the record label or content supplier directly. A direct
license like this is typically also required if you'll be offering downloads
of tracks, not just streaming broadcast.

\- the biggest/best change on the artist side is from the Allocation for Music
Producers (AMP) part of the collection of bills passed here, which officially
recognizes producers for their contributions to a work and makes them eligible
to receive royalties

\- the biggest/best change on the steaming provider side comes from the Music
Modernization Act (MMA) part of the collection, which introduces the concept
of a blanket mechanical license. Interactive streaming (think on-demand usage
where the user has lots of control, not radio-style usage where the user has
little to no control) requires a streaming mechanical license, and up until
this point, these licenses have been cumbersome to get - you don't get one by
default, you have to request one specifically for each track you want to play
from the copyright holder, and the streaming provider themselves is
responsible for trying to track down the rights on their own. Clearinghouses
like the Harry Fox Agency try to simplify this process and provide tools for
automating it, but, it is clunky at best. The MMA makes streaming mechanical
licenses much more like a noninteractive statutory license, where no pre-
approval is required for use as long as the streaming provider is properly
registered with PROs and promises they'll record their usage, report it
properly, and keep some money on-hand for the eventual royalty bill.

I don't have much opinion on the parts of the legislation that relate to
copyright for pre-1972 works.

In short: it should be easier to get paid if you're a music producer, easier
to get paid if you're an artist whose work is being used by interactive
streaming services but you aren't big enough to be covered by a supplier or
major-label direct license, and the barriers to entry for a service who wants
to provide interactive streaming just got a little lower on the licensing
side.

~~~
eutropia
Seems, neutral to positive then? Excepting the part where perpetual copyright
seems to be the future (not like this bill would have passed if it took an
activist stance against it).

Still, am I the only one who instantly thought that the title "Music
Modernization Act" meant that some horrible draconian policy was being
implemented, given the past abuses of the "simple name of a bill"?

~~~
PlanarFreak
For those trying to parse this thread (like myself), "perpetual copyright"
refers to the "CLASSICS Act" that's bundled with the Music Modernization Act.
It retroactively extends federal copyright protection to recordings from 1923
to 1972, up to 2067 for recordings between '57 and '72.

IMO it's not the worst, but it opens the door to more Mickey Mouse antics
further down the road.

~~~
Bartweiss
This is the biggest issue I see with the act, but I don't think it's too
terrible.

'57 recording will end up with 110 years of copyright instead of the normal
95, but 1923 recordings will unambiguously enter public domain three years
from now.

In return, we get pre-'72 music standardized under federal copyright law.
It'll streamline licensing, and given that state copyright laws can allow for
perpetual copyright, I'm hopeful this still represents a modest improvement.

------
branksy
From Wikipedia: _The bills in both House and Senate had bipartisan support, as
well as strong support from numerous music industry groups representing
musicians, producers, and publishers, as well as from digital streaming media
services and related industry groups._

Notably missing from the list are musicians themselves (who are the "groups
representing them"?) and consumers.

Is this actually a good thing? Will it lead to greater income for the majority
of musicians (as opposed to the top 0.1%?). Will it end up raising prices on
Spotify or making it harder for new streaming competitors to enter the market?

~~~
Bartweiss
The support list definitely put my hackles up, as did the name. It's not quite
"The Patriot Act", but it's in that "embarrassing to oppose the name" vein. To
my surprise, it actually seems fine. The lack of representation for artists
looks like a product of the law's main features not impacting active
performers. The law has four distinct features, none of which have a
significant impact on "some up-and-coming band played a song and wants to get
paid".

1\. It establishes a non-profit agency to track mechanical license holders of
works, and allows streaming services to pay license fees into that agency,
which will pass them along. This sounds like it might have bad effects, but in
practice it's apparently an attempt to fix the problem of "Spotify can't offer
this song because they can't find who they need to pay".

Importantly, 'mechanical license' means "music and words", so this will track
who owns Happy Birthday, but not change anything about how Spotify pays
performers over "the song as we wrote and performed it". And since mechanical
licensing is already compulsory, the fees can go to a clearinghouse without
any need to negotiate a price.

2\. It extends federal copyright laws to pre-1972 music. This will undoubtedly
help some people and hurt others, but it mostly serves to clear out a rat's
nest of state laws. Some much older works will enter public domain in 3 years,
newer stuff will receive the usual 95 year copyright window.

3\. Guarantees a portion of mechanical license fees to producers/engineers/etc
who played a creative role in the production. Apparently not very
controversial.

4\. Fixes some jurisdictional weirdness with royalty rate disputes by
spreading the cases across more judges.

Mostly this looks like it fixes one big liability issue ("wait, who do we
pay?") and several issues with existing laws, and it looks like artists are
indifferent because the situation for people who actually perform a song is
unaffected. I'm pleasantly surprised.

------
LeoPanthera
The act is complicated and difficult to summarise, but they didn't even try.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Modernization_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Modernization_Act)

Unlike most Wikipedia articles, reading just the first paragraph is not, in
this case, enough.

------
tinkerteller
Pretty bad journalism. The article is full of what other people think of this
act without ever revealing what really this new act does!

~~~
harshreality
It modernizes music. Why are you being such a buzzkill?! /s

The main thing that seems clear is that it streamlines licensing somewhat.

------
triodan
What does the new act entail? This article is severely lacking on that front.

~~~
da_murvel
Apparently it "ensures artists receive the compensation they are owed,
encourages fair industry competition, and protects the intellectual property
rights of studios nationwide—among other benefits."[0] However, I find it
difficult to find anything about how this is actually implemented. Apart from
this: "t 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." [1] Which to me sounds very vague.

Found this also. "The MMA is a bill to be added to legislation with the goal
of establishing a new collecting society, called the Mechanical Licensing
Collective (MLC), that would be empowered to provide a blanket license for
streaming services to companies, covering mechanical rights in any songs not
otherwise covered by a digital company’s direct deals with music
publishers."[2] So if I interpret this quote correctly, it basically means
that there's going to be some sort of organisation chaperoning artist and
music makers without a license to their music, collecting a license fee from
streaming services and paying it to said musicians and music makers?

[0][https://mashable.com/article/music-modernization-act-your-
mo...](https://mashable.com/article/music-modernization-act-your-money/)

[1] [https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8216857/music-
mo...](https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8216857/music-
modernization-act-what-is-it-why-does-it-matter-jordan-bromley)

[2][https://blog.songtrust.com/what-is-the-music-
modernization-a...](https://blog.songtrust.com/what-is-the-music-
modernization-act)

------
moviuro
[https://archive.is/wE4qo](https://archive.is/wE4qo)

Viva la GDPR...

~~~
Cthulhu_
Don't blame the GDPR (read: basic human rights to privacy) for the LA Times
not respecting them.

~~~
moviuro
I really don't blame the GDPR, I'm glad LA Times publicly acknowledges that
they don't respect their readers.

HN should totally have a bot for this kind of links, and automatically add the
archive link in a comment.

~~~
sp332
Does hitting the "web" link underneath the URL help in this case? You could
pull the Google cache I think.

------
kizer
I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt confused and underwhelmed after reading
this piece! I wanted the details.

------
larkeith
Why is it I'm so dubious that anything "hailed by the Music Industry" will
prove beneficial for anyone except the corporations who own the copyrights?

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
You can bet that if no record labels are speaking out against this law that it
directly benefits them in some way.

------
syshum
> is that it guarantees that writers of pre-1972 songs receive federal
> copyright protection

it is a sad day for the constution, and for the Public....

Nothing pre-1972 should have any copyright at all at this point, Copyright
should be for 14 years + a single 14 year extension if the Human Creator is
still alive to file for the extension.

28 years is the MAXIMUM anything should be copyrighted for, 14 years if the
copyright is held by a company

The erosion of a vibrant Public Domain catalog is one of the greatest
travesties of modern human civilization

~~~
charlesdm
One could argue if you made something, you're entitled to the rights.

If a painter makes a painting, he'll be able to pass those down to his
children. But if a musician makes a song, it'll end up in the public domain
after X years.

~~~
ovi256
The intellectual rights on the painting (can anyone reproduce it, in say,
print, without the rightholder's agreement) are quite separate from the
property rights on the physical embodiment of the painting.

Literature is closer to music in this aspect, as neither has any physical
property. Copyright on both is limited.

~~~
sjwright
And if someone invents a way of creating nominally perfect three dimensional
reproductions of paintings, such copies would be legal.

------
gophicer
Musician here. This means jack. Also kid rock? I mean I understand why he is
there. Trumps base... But that dude just sucks.

------
bsenftner
Kid Rock? This Congress? Whatever they are doing is fucked, and you can bet on
that.

