Here are the loopholes filled by the law on the modernization of music

[ad_1]
<div _ngcontent-c15 = "" innerhtml = "

With the presidential signature this morning, the law on the modernization of music, now officially called the 2018 law on the modernization of music Orrin G. Hatch-Bob Goodlatte – became law after being passed by the Senate last month. This is the largest draft copyright legislation to have been passed in decades, although its purpose is to plug the holes in existing copyright legislation rather than to proceed to a complete overhaul.

The law was originally presented in the form of a collection of four separate laws, each aimed at a specific deficiency of copyright law in the field of music. During the passage of the bill through the Congress, one of these pieces disappeared: the Fair Play Fair Pay Act, formerly known as the Fair Play Act, which would oblige AM / FM broadcasters to pay royalties to labels and artists. performers, as digital radio services such as Pandora and Sirius XM. make. Fair Play Fair Pay was added to MMA earlier this year, despite fears that lobbying by the National Association of Broadcasters on its lobbying activities would hinder its progress through Congress; these fears proved to be correct and the fair-play-fair-pay provisions were removed.

Otherwise, the MMA obtained unanimous approval from both houses of Congress after many dramas in the music industry, but ultimately few major changes from the original version of the House.

The centerpiece is a set of changes to an area of ​​copyright related to music called mechanical licensing for musical compositions. It is one of the few types of licenses that interactive digital music services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited must use music to make legally available on their services. Specifically, a "mechanic" is a license to copy and distribute a musical composition (music and lyrics), written by one or more songwriters and administered by music publishers. Music services must also take separate licenses for sound recordings of these compositions, created by performers and administered (in most cases) by record companies.

The gap that MMA eliminates is the huge amount of paperwork and royalty processing that digital music services must manage to comply with current mechanical licensing legislation – and the legal risk they incur if they are wrong. These music services record tens of thousands of new tracks everyday and must authorize them correctly; Apple and Spotify have both been facing lawsuits over alleged mechanical license errors.

MMA solves this problem by releasing the music services of all the paperwork and entrusting it to a single non-profit mechanical licensing agency created by the US Copyright Office in the next nine months. Interactive digital music services must simply accept some conditions and subscribe to what the law calls a general license (a license for any music protected by copyright instead of each composition individually). They will then report the music playback activities and pay periodic royalties to the mechanical licensing agency, which will pay royalties to the rights holders.

As a result, digital music services will reduce their overhead – Google bought an entire company called RightsFlow in 2011 to handle this royalty treatment. – and virtually eliminate their legal risks related to mechanical licensing issues. In exchange, the music services have accepted some changes in the way royalties are set (by a group of administrative law judges from the Copyright Office) and will likely pay higher royalties at the same time. to come up.

Although various interest groups expressed their concerns during the legislative trip to Congress, the main groups – music publishers, songwriters and digital music services – are satisfied with the result. Persistent concerns were expressed about the nature of the single mechanical licensing agency and its incentives (or lack thereof) to ensure the accuracy and accountability of royalty payments, but the Law Office Copyright understands these concerns in the coming months and will act accordingly.

The MMA also corrects two other shortcomings in the copyright law relating to music. One is to assign the federal copyright to sound recordings made before 1972 – who previously enjoyed copyright protection under a patchwork of state laws. This should end a series of disputes over the payment of royalties from various music services for the alleged non-payment of royalties on older recordings. The other main provision of the MMA guarantees that royalty payments go to producers and artists featured on sound recordings, codifying what has been a conventional practice for some time.

">

With the presidential signature this morning, the law on the modernization of music, now officially called the 2018 law on the modernization of music Orrin G. Hatch-Bob Goodlatte – became law after being passed by the Senate last month. This is the largest draft copyright legislation to have been passed in decades, although its purpose is to plug the holes in existing copyright legislation rather than to proceed to a complete overhaul.

The law was originally presented in the form of a collection of four separate laws, each aimed at a specific deficiency of copyright law in the field of music. During the passage of the bill through the Congress, one of these pieces disappeared: the Fair Play Fair Pay Act, formerly known as the Fair Play Act, which would oblige AM / FM broadcasters to pay royalties to labels and artists. performers, as digital radio services such as Pandora and Sirius XM. make. Fair Play Fair Pay was added to MMA earlier this year, despite fears that lobbying by the National Association of Broadcasters on its lobbying activities would hinder its progress through Congress; these fears proved to be correct and the fair-play-fair-pay provisions were removed.

Otherwise, the MMA obtained unanimous approval from both houses of Congress after many dramas in the music industry, but ultimately few major changes from the original version of the House.

The centerpiece is a set of changes to an area of ​​copyright related to music called mechanical licensing for musical compositions. It is one of the few types of licenses that interactive digital music services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited must use music to make legally available on their services. Specifically, a "mechanic" is a license to copy and distribute a musical composition (music and lyrics), written by one or more songwriters and administered by music publishers. Music services must also take separate licenses for sound recordings of these compositions, created by performers and administered (in most cases) by record companies.

The gap that MMA eliminates is the huge amount of paperwork and royalty processing that digital music services must manage to comply with current mechanical licensing legislation – and the legal risk they incur if they are wrong. These music services record tens of thousands of new tracks everyday and must authorize them correctly; Apple and Spotify have both been facing lawsuits over alleged mechanical license errors.

MMA solves this problem by releasing the music services of all the paperwork and entrusting it to a single non-profit mechanical licensing agency created by the US Copyright Office in the next nine months. Interactive digital music services must simply accept some conditions and subscribe to what the law calls a general license (a license for any music protected by copyright instead of each composition individually). They will then report the music playback activities and pay periodic royalties to the mechanical licensing agency, which will pay royalties to the rights holders.

As a result, digital music services will reduce their overhead – Google bought an entire company called RightsFlow in 2011 to handle this royalty treatment. – and virtually eliminate their legal risks related to mechanical licensing issues. In exchange, the music services have accepted some changes in the way royalties are set (by a group of administrative law judges from the Copyright Office) and will likely pay higher royalties at the same time. to come up.

Although various interest groups expressed their concerns during the legislative trip to Congress, the main groups – music publishers, songwriters and digital music services – are satisfied with the result. Persistent concerns were expressed about the nature of the single mechanical licensing agency and its incentives (or lack thereof) to ensure the accuracy and accountability of royalty payments, but the Law Office Copyright understands these concerns in the coming months and will act accordingly.

The MMA also corrects two other shortcomings in the copyright law relating to music. One is to assign the federal copyright to sound recordings made before 1972 – who previously enjoyed copyright protection under a patchwork of state laws. This should end a series of disputes over the payment of royalties from various music services for the alleged non-payment of royalties on older recordings. The other main provision of the MMA guarantees that royalty payments go to producers and artists featured on sound recordings, codifying what has been a conventional practice for some time.