Rights

On October 25, the U.S. Copyright Office issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register to clarify the application of the derivative works exception to copyright termination rights within the context of blanket licenses administered under the Music Modernization Act (MMA). The Office is hoping to correct what it sees as a legally erroneous dispute resolution policy established by the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC).

Source: Copyright Office Issues NPRM to Correct MLC’s ‘Erroneous’ Dispute Policy on Post-Termination Blanket License Royalties

A federal judge has rejected one of Pandora’s key arguments in its legal battle with comedians, dismissing claims that a licensing group called Word Collections was operating as an illegal comedy “cartel.” Pandora claimed that by teaming up with Word Collections to demand such royalties, the comedians were effectively trying to create a “monopolistic portfolio” of comedy rights, aimed at “dramatically increasing” the prices streamers must pay for comedy.

Source: Pandora’s ‘Cartel’ Claims Tossed Out By Judge In Comedy Copyright Fight

Despite a 27.9% rise in digital royalties helped by the growth of subscription streaming, total worldwide collections in 2021 were still 5.3% lower than in 2019. The result illuminates the disastrous impact of the two-year lockdown on live and public performance income, the potential for further digital growth and the urgent need for actions to unlock more value for creators in the streaming market.

Source: Global creators’ collections up 5.8% in 2021 but still below pre-COVID levels

Music has certainly evolved since Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877. However, even in Edison’s time, technological innovation in music was met with strong objection. Famous composer of marches, John Philip Sousa, foresaw our modern problem, declaring “[t]he time is coming when … everyone will have their ready made or ready pirated music in their cupboards.” How will the law keep up as the capacities of AI rise exponentially?

Source: Artificial Intelligence and a New Wave of Music Copyright Questions

The next generation of consumers just does not consume audio (and visual material) in the same way that previous generations did. That’s precisely why the music industry needs to wake up – and reshape the digital remuneration system for visual and audio creators as a whole. The majority of Gen Z now treats audio discovery and consumption as an enhancement to their social platform visual creation.

Source: Why aren’t music royalties paid by the second?

The MLC reports that rightsholders have received more than $800 million to date, including nearly $700 million in blanket royalties paid directly by the MLC, plus nearly $120 million in royalties processed by The MLC but paid by DSPs. The MLC administers a blanket compulsory license for the use of musical works by digital music services. From January 2021, The MLC started processing and paying out “mechanical royalties” at no cost to songwriters or music publishers.

Source: Nearly $700m has been paid to songwriters and publishers by the MLC to date

SoundExchange reported paying out $238.9 million in royalties for Q3 2022, a slight decrease from the same stretch in 2021. The figure represents an approximately seven percent decline from Q3 2021’s roughly $256 million in distributed royalties – a total that itself marked a six percent QoQ boost as well as a comparatively small one percent YoY uptick.

Source: SoundExchange Reports $238.9 Million Q3 2022 Distribution

Creator royalties have largely fallen out of favor in the Solana NFT space lately, as top marketplace Magic Eden made paying them optional last week after royalties-shunning rivals snatched away market share. Now Metaplex, the creator of Solana’s NFT standard, says it is developing a new standard that can enforce royalty payments across the board.

Source: Solana Could Get Enforceable NFT Royalties Via New Metaplex Standard – Decrypt

Hollywood director, cult classic film and major production company – the stage was set for a truly breakthrough debut performance as a US Court was poised to wade into the milieu of intellectual property issues that arise from non-fungible tokens. However it looks like this area of law will have to wait a little longer for its moment in the spotlight, with Miramax and Quentin Tarantino settling their dispute which caught international media attention.

Source: Miramax and Tarantino settle Pulp Fiction NFT dispute leaving NFT IP issues in valley of darkness

Los Angeles-based B2B music licensing company Songtradr has launched a new tech solution called Smart Sync, which it calls “an advanced technology to track, control, and monetize music catalogs”. This digital rights management technology allows labels, publishers, and production music libraries to manage their music for global sync across platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Source: Songtradr launches new ‘Smart Sync’ digital rights management tool