Big Shake-Up to Music Licensing Regime Embraced by U.S. Copyright Office

[PoliticAverse]

In a 245-page report issued on Thursday, the U.S. Copyright Office is throwing its weight behind what would be the most radical changes to how music is licensed in nearly a half century.

Many of the copyright laws governing music were first erected at the time that player pianos became popular and have developed through the advent of radio, new recording devices and, most recently, digital networks. Maria Pallante, director of the Copyright Office, believes the law is behind the times.

"The structures that evolved in the previous century to facilitate the lawful exploitation of musical works and sound recordings, while perhaps adequate for the era of discs and tapes, are under significant stress," states the report. "From a copyright perspective, we are trying to deliver bits and bytes through a Victrola."

Some of the proposals figure to spark controversy, debate and furious lobbying should the U.S. Congress tackle a broad overhaul of music licensing.

Read the rest at: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/big-shake-up-music-licensing-770512

[bananas]

1. This looks important, but I'll have to read it later. nt

[JDPriestly]

2. Music builds upon the music of the past.

Music develops. Individual composers play a limited role. I'm very skeptical about what is described as the plan in the article. Sounds like a bunch of MBAs and corporate types are trying to harness music. Yes. Composers should be rewarded for their creativity. But most music grows out of other music. A lot of our popular music uses a rather limited number of sets of chord progressions. There are 12 tones available to be used in most musical composition.

I wonder whether the people who will be writing these new laws are themselves musicians or performers. And what concerns me is whether the art of performance will be given its due in these laws.

I can't say I am against these changes because the article is not very clear about what specifically is being proposed. But I am quite skeptical. Sounds like a scheme by and for corporations to try to "own" music.

I wonder whether we would have Beethoven's symphonies or Mozart's operas or Bach's music if our copyright laws had existed at that time. Music is not about the money. It's nice if a musician can make money, but music is a gift, a spiritual obligation to share, not a way to make a lot of money. Sorry about that, but it is just true. If you want to make a lot of money, don't become a musician. Get a day job. If you do make a lot of money in music, you are very lucky. A lot of really good musicians don't every make much money. And I doubt that changing our copyright laws to make it easier for big corporations to sue little musicians and radio stations, etc. will change that fact.

[on point]

3. I agree with your POV. I suspect the corps are fighting a tidal wave of public domain

and will lose.

We will return to time when musicians paid for performances, not compositions. Especially since corps are trying to take lion's share for upwards of 100 years, instead of the 20 originally intended by framers of constitution.....

[lovemydog]

4. Here's some of the changes proposed by the U.S. Copyright Office

(from same article):

For example, the Copyright Office wants to extend the public performance right in sound recordings to terrestrial radio broadcasts — a big shift from the time when publicity was seen at payment enough to copyright owners.

Also proposed is fully federalizing pre-1972 recordings, a change that would come on the heels of lawsuits against SiriusXM, Pandora and others who have been exploiting older sound recordings without compensation to their owners.

Many of the changes would be boon to those who hold or manage public performance rights. The Copyright Office endorses reconsidering 75-year-old antitrust decrees for ASCAP and BMI and also wishes to give music rights owners such as publishers the ability to withdraw streaming rights from services. What's more, the proposal would essentially turn performance rights organizations into "music rights organizations" with the ability to bundle reproduction, distribution and performance rights together.

The report also envisions changes to which rights are subject to compulsory blanket licensing and which rights will be subject to free market negotiations. Certain digital uses and public television uses of music may fall under fixed rates while in other circumstances, music rights owners will be given more flexibility to seek bigger payouts. For the types of licensing that are subject to rate-setting, the Copyright Office is looking to streamline the procedures.

Other changes including allowing SoundExchange to administer record producer payments; having those in the music industry work on creating an authoritative public database of music data; and taking care of songwriters and recording artists who want more transparency in the deal-making between labels and publishers on one side and services like Spotify on the other.