Civic Register
| 10.11.18
Trump Signs Landmark Music Bill Into Law
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What’s the story?
- President Donald Trump signed the Music Modernization Act (MMA) into law at a ceremony at the White House on Thursday, joined by Kid Rock, Sam Moore of Sam & Dave, country singer John Rich, and the Doobie Brothers’ Jeff “Skunk” Baxter.
- The Orrin G. Hatch-Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act will update several provisions of U.S. copyright law regarding music licensing to reflect how digital music services operate while ensuring that royalties can be collected on pre-1972 recordings and by creative professionals.
- The package is meant to streamline how songwriters are paid in the era of digital music.
- “You like this legislation or do you hate it?” Trump asked Kid Rock during the signing. “I like it,” replied Kid Rock.
“Everybody knows this business of music is a very dirty business,” Rock said after the signing. “There’s a lot more that needs to be done here. We need to go after the record labels next, and things like free goods. But this is a great start to protect songwriters, producers, engineers—the unsung heroes behind many of these songs that go out there. People like myself who are maybe more at the top of the food chain, it really doesn’t affect as much. But I know many people it does affect.”
What will the Music Modernization Act do?
- As NPR summarized, “the bill will establish a public database of compositions, who owns those compositions, who wrote them and who administers them.”
- The database will be run by the to-be-established Music Licensing Collective (potentially known as SongExchange, a sister to currently-established SoundExchange), which will be populated by representatives from the major publishing companies and songwriters.
What other bills are included in this music omnibus?
- Allocation for Music Producers: creates a way for producers and engineers to receive direct payments from music databases when recordings are used on satellite radio and online radio services like Pandora.
- Compensating Legacy Artists for their Songs, Service, and Important Contributions to Society (CLASSICS): requires digital services to pay both rights holders and artists for the use of recordings made before 1972. (Currently, digital broadcasters like Sirius XM do not pay royalties on songs recorded prior to 1972.)
- Songwriter Equity Act: Allows judges on the Copyright Royalty Board to consider market conditions when setting its rates. It will also allow courts to consider relevant benchmark deals.
- "Three-quarters of a songwriter's income is regulated by the federal government," National Music Publishers Assn. president David Israelite explained earlier this year.
“While most property rights are valued in a free market, songwriters have suffered under a system that devalues their work and takes away their most basic property rights...if songwriters' royalties must be regulated, they should at least be based on fair market value."
Who supported the bill?
- Put on your Focus Playlist for this one. Supporters include: the Internet Association, SAG-AFTRA and AFM, the National Music Publishers Association, the Recording Industry Association of America, the Recording Academy, Nashville Songwriters Association International, ASCAP and BMI, C3, A2IM, Songwriters Guild of America, Songwriters of North America, SoundExchange, and the Digital Media Association and its member companies Pandora, Spotify, and Amazon.
What do you think?
Do you use any streaming music services? Are you a songwriter? Do you support the Music Modernization Act? Is there anything missing from the legislation? Take action and tell your reps, then share your thoughts below.
—Josh Herman
(Photo Credit: iStockphoto.com / yipengge)
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