ASCAP

Momentum Builds For Music Database, But Controversy May Follow

The music industry has been discussing and debating for years the merits of creating a comprehensive, publicly accessible database of musical works and sound recordings and the ownership information attendant to each — something that does not currently exist. But various multi-stakeholder efforts to compile such a catalog have faltered amid disputes over cost, control, and access, most spectacularly the ill-fated Global Repertoire Database initiative spearheaded by a group of music publishers and performance rights organizations.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner

The need for such data, meanwhile, has only grown more acute, as the volume of new recordings being released each month as exploded and music streaming services churn through vast catalogs, leading to an eruption of disputes and litigation over the proper payment of royalties to rights owners.

Momentum seems to be building, however, behind renewed efforts to compile the universal look-up catalog, although controversy is already bubbling up around some of those efforts. Last week, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s Intellectual Property Subcommittee introduced the Transparency in Music Licensing Ownership Act, which would instruct the U.S. Copyright Office to compile an open, comprehensive database linking metadata about sound recordings with metadata and ownership information about musical works so that users of sound recordings would be able to identify and locate the current rights owners of the musical works involved. The bill would also appropriate money to compile and maintain the database.

To encourage rights owners to register their works with Copyright Office for inclusion in the database the bill would also limit their ability to bring legal action against alleged infringers if the rights owner has not provided up-to-date information to the Copyright Office.

“Across the country, businesses and establishments play or perform music for the enjoyment of their patrons, but the process of ensuring they are legally able to do so, as well as those who hold the license to the music or recordings being played are fairly compensated, is convoluted and difficult,” Sensenbrenner said in a press release. “The Transparency in Music Licensing Ownership Act is a step forward in simplifying the process and helping business owners to identify copyright holders in one easy location to ensure they comply with licensing and payment requirements.”

How far Sensenbrenner’s bill will go in the current congress is an open question. Very little legislation in moving on Capitol Hill these days amid gridlock over health care reform and the multiple investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. It’s also possible the effort could get dragged into the still unresolved controversy over the appointment of a new Register of Copyrights, a position sill unfilled since the previous Register, Maria Pallante was removed last year by the new Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden.

But Sensenbrenner’s bill seems to have lit a fire under other music industry stakeholders who already make commercial use of elements of the data the bill would make public. On Wednesday, the two leading PROs in the U.S., ASCAP and BMI, announced plans to combine their respective catalogs of musical works into a single, unified database and to make it available to others in the industry.

“ASCAP and BMI are proactively and voluntarily moving the entire industry a step forward to more accurate, reliable and user-friendly data, ASCAP CEO Elizabeth Matthews said in a press release. “We believe in a free market with more industry cooperation and alignment on data issues.  Together, ASCAP and BMI have the most expertise in building and managing complex copyright ownership databases.”

Sensenbrenner immediately blasted the move, however, as an attempt to preempt his legislation.

“If BMI and ASCAP were serious about establishing a music database, not only would they have spoken to my office and other interested

Robert Kasunic, Associate Register of Copyrights and Director of Registration Policy and Practice, U.S. Copyright Office

Members of Congress about their plans, but they would have also included their fellow PROs in the initiative,” he said in a statement. “With their announcement today, they are grasping at straws; trying to maintain power over a failing process that only serves their interests, not those of the American consumer.”

The upcoming RightsTech Summit, which will be held September 27th in New York City, will tackle the daunting data challenges music industry and other media sectors face today as digital platforms strain legacy rights management and licensing systems, as well as the renewed efforts to create a comprehensive music rights database.

Executives from Rumblefish and the Harry Fox Agency, Music Reports, and other private companies making commercial use of the data targeted by Sensenbrenner’s bill will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of data sharing and the technological challenges associated with making it available.

The summit will also feature a one-on-one fireside chat with Robert Kasunic, Associate Register of Copyrights and Director of Registration Policy and Practice at the U.S. Copyright Office, who will address copyright reform efforts in the U.S. and elsewhere, including the Transparency in Music Licensing Ownership Act.

For information on registering for the RightsTech Summit, click here.

 

Why Rights Organizations Want to Make Music Together

Music rights collection societies can’t seem to get enough of each other these days. Last week’s news that France’s SACEM, the UKs PRS, and ASCAP in the U.S. will collaborate in a project to build a prototype blockchain-based metadata linking system was only the most high-profile example of a trend that can trace its origins back at least to SESAC’s acquisition of the Harry Fox Agency in 2015.

Overshadowed by the SACEM/PRS/ASCAP announcement was confirmation last week that Canada’s main performing rights organization SOCAN is in advanced talks with SODRAC, which licenses reproduction rights in Canada about merging the two organizations. In Europe, meanwhile, the cross-border PRO consortium Armonia Online is now up to nine member societies and is eyeing expansion beyond the Continent, Armonia officials told RightsTech.com,  including to North America.

Not all such moves have the same immediate causes or motivations. SOCAN, for instance, has already swallowed MediaNet (formerly MusicNet) and Audiam as it strives to build an end-to-end rights-management platform with reach beyond the Canadian market and a merger with SODRAC, which in addition to representing Canadian songwriters and publishers is the exclusive representative in Canada for music works from 100 other countries, would be of a piece with that broader strategy.

Armonia Online’s growth has been driven by an EU directive to improve transparency and governance of collection societies and facilitate cross-border licensing.

The SACEM/PRS/ASCAP announcement would seem to be at least partly defensive: If blockchain-based metadata management is coming to the music business anyway, better that it be designed to the benefit and specifications of the PROs than risk having to conform their processes to a system designed by and for others.

To one degree or another, however, all reflect the impact of two underlying and related dynamics. One is the increasing complexity of the market for music rights, as both the number of use-cases for music explodes, creating a demand for more efficient and integrated licensing solutions.

The other factor behind the growing urge to merge among collective licensing organizations is the rapid spread of new rights management technology. The growing availability of DIY publishing tools and independent publishing and rights management platforms (think Kobalt) means that, over time, collective licensing organizations will need to manage ever more payouts and account to ever more clients than they have been accustomed to.

That will require much greater granularity of data and greater transparency into the tracking of uses and payment of royalties — something blockchain proponents tout for the technology. But it also puts a high premium on scale. The need to track more uses, and make more and smaller payments to more and smaller rights owners, will generate pressure to drive down the collection societies’ own costs, through greater scale, shared infrastructure around cost-centers like metadata management, and adoption of technology.

Rather than disintermediating collective rights management organizations, in other words, improved rights management technology could, paradoxically, create an incentive for them to get bigger.

Photo: Jens Thekkeveettil (CCO)

DOJ Cites Music Industry’s Data Problem in Rejecting Changes to ASCAP, BMI Consent Decrees

577cc1d010909-imageThe U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division formally closed its revue of the ASCAP and BMI consent decrees Thursday, issuing a lengthy statement spelling out why it decided not to make any changes to the decrees, at least for now, and why it now reads those decrees to require 100 percent licensing by the PROs of any works in their repertories even if they don’t represent 100 percent of the owners of those works.

Justice Department Won’t Change Music Licensing Agreements 

The Justice Department has completed its review of 75-year-old consent decrees that govern how music rights organizations set rates for licensing songs — and they are proposing no changes.

“Although stakeholders on all sides have raised some concerns with the status quo, the division’s investigation confirmed that the current system has well served music creators and music users for decades and should remain intact,” the DOJ said in a lengthy statement explaining its reasoning on Thursday.

Source: Justice Department Won’t Change Music Licensing Agreements | Variety

Attorney General Loretta Lynch Says DOJ Position on Licensing, Consent Decrees Isn’t Finalized 

Despite reliable sources telling Billboard that the Dept. of Justice’s (DoJ) ruling expanding the power of the consent decree is a done deal — with a written statement detailing its decision is expected sometime this summer — the head of that agency, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, testified before Congress last week, on July 12, that the DoJ’s review isn’t complete and that a decision has not yet been reached.

“My understanding is that the review is not complete… and the decision hasn’t been made and the discussion is still ongoing,” Lynch said during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Source: Attorney General Loretta Lynch Says Dept. of Justice Position on Licensing, Consent Decrees Isn’t Finalized | Billboard

Indie Music Trade Groups Blast DOJ’s 100% Licensing Position 

Condemnation of a new U.S. Department of Justice position allowing 100% licencing of songs has been nearly universal within the music publishing community. In a show of unity, three independent music trade groups have issued a joint response:

We, the undersigned, represent the independent music publishing and record label community in North America, and want to lend our unified voice to the recent press and discussion regarding the outrageous position the Department of Justice (DoJ) has taken with regard to the ASCAP and BMI consent decrees.

Source: Indie Music Trade Groups A2IM, AIMP, CMPA Issue Joint Response To DoJ 100% Licensing Position – hypebot

Department Of Justice To Deny Consent Decree Amendment 

The U.S. Department of Justice struck a major blow Wednesday to U.S. music publishers and performing rights organizations.

A nearly two-year process to amend the consent decree so that music publishers would have the right to withdraw digital licensing from the blanket licenses offered by ASCAP and BMI — the two performing rights organizations operating under a DOJ consent decree since 1941 — has ended with no changes to the consent degree, much to the chagrin of major publishers like Sony/ATV, Universal Music Publishing Group and BMG.

Source: Department Of Justice To Deny Consent Decree Amendment | Billboard

ASCAP scraps exclusivity clauses as it settles for $1.75m with DoJ 

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) has reached a $1.75m Settlement Agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice addressing two specific concerns raised during the Department’s ongoing review of the ASCAP Consent Decree.

Although ASCAP has admitted no wrongdoing, it has agreed to scrap exclusivity clauses in some historical agreements with members – while pointing out that such provisions have never been enforced.

Source: ASCAP scraps exclusivity clauses as it settles for $1.75m with DoJ – Music Business Worldwide

ASCAP Payout to Industry Falls by $16m, Despite Revenue Growth

US licensing body ASCAP collected more than $1bn for the second year in a row in 2015 – but paid out some $16.1m less to songwriters and publishers.

As a result, the collection society’s overall cost-to-income ratio moved in the wrong direction for rights-holders – despite its expenses actually dropping in the year.

Total receipts at ASCAP last year hit $1.015bn, up 1.3% on the $1.002bn collected in 2014. However, 2015 saw distributions of $867.4m to ASCAP’s 560,000 members in the US and around the world.

Source: Music Business Worldwide

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