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Senate Passes Music Modernization Act With Unanimous Support (billboard.com)
After the House's unilateral support back in April, the Senate has unanimously voted to pass the Orrin G. Hatch Music Modernization Act, which is named in honor of the Republican senior senator from Utah -- a songwriter himself -- who will retire at the end of the year. Billboard explains the bill: The bill creates a blanket mechanical license and establishes a collective to administer it; reshapes how courts can determine rates, while making sure future performance rates hearings between performance rights organizations BMI and ASCAP and licensees rotate among all U.S. Southern District Court of New York Judges, instead of being assigned to the same two judges, Judge Denise Cote for ASCAP and Judge Louis Stanton for BMI, as its done now; creates a royalty for labels, artists and musicians to be paid by digital services for master recordings created prior to Feb. 15, 1972, while also eliminating a Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 carve out for "pre-existing digital services" like Sirius XM and Music Choice that allows for certain additional considerations not given to any other digital service when rates are set; and codifies a process for Sound Exchange to pay producers and engineers royalties for records on which they have worked.
Over on the music publishing side of the business, there was much happiness too. For example, ASCAP noted that the legislation reforms an "outdated music licensing system and give music creators an opportunity to obtain compensation that more accurately reflects the value of music in a free market." Billboard notes that the revised Senate version "will go back to the House where it needs approval due to all the changes made to the bill in order to get it passed in the Senate." Once the House approves, it will then head to President Trump's desk.
Over on the music publishing side of the business, there was much happiness too. For example, ASCAP noted that the legislation reforms an "outdated music licensing system and give music creators an opportunity to obtain compensation that more accurately reflects the value of music in a free market." Billboard notes that the revised Senate version "will go back to the House where it needs approval due to all the changes made to the bill in order to get it passed in the Senate." Once the House approves, it will then head to President Trump's desk.
Actually you have just described something free - the income for the heirs who may never worked, never contributed to anything, they just got the right to the "royalties" for creation of someone related to them. Their ancestor actually already got paid in their life for his artistic contribution from which they and their heirs might have benefited. And now they just get money for nothing. It's not even money for guarding and protecting vision of an artist which i would understand but just the money like they were actual contributors. And if the author gives its creation away to everyone for free for the good of public he now can be overturned by some random shi*head who can just rerecord his art and get again something for free - not only he does not need to pay the actual author but he gets what's is not his - again - for free. It's just a way to pay more for creative works to the rights holder and not to the authors. Counter intuitive, counter productive etc. Like always - good intentions are not enough to conclude in the good legislation.
It seems the one thing that is free is money for the heirs of artists.
It's not even the heirs themselves who are pushing this as much as the all the rest of the industry that profits from being solely licensed distributors/publishers and continuing to make a profit from works that should have entered the public domain long ago.
The social contract has been broken. The deal was we protect the works for the author/artists for a **limited** time (eternity minus a day is NOT what was meant by "limited time", that's just sophistry and semantics) and, in exchange, those works become free for anyone to do anything they like with them. That is no longer true in any but the technical sense. For example, any time the copyright on Mickey Mouse nears expiration, boom!...a new Act extending copyright terms magically is passed with few voting against even in the partisan warzone that is Congress.
And I'm sure they'll be shocked & surprised when more and more people simply stop even pretending to obey copyright restrictions. It appears so counterproductive that you'd almost think there might be ulterior motives involved.
But that would be 'conspiracy theory' territory, as we all know just how honest, open, and transparent those in power in the private and public sectors are about such things.
Right?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Nothing in this world is free, and only a thief or a fool believes otherwise.
Unless your an heir of someone who wrote some popular music before you were even born. Then you get to ride their coattails to bags of free money.
Wanna buy a shirt?
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Thank you for the link. It was much needed.
It should also be pointed out that no one has heard a wiff of this through major news outlets because they've been consumed with made-for-TV hearings to appoint and/or tear down some guy to fill some other similar guy's post. It's almost like both sides of the aisle want that circus to avoid any light to shine on the bipartisan screw-the-little-guy crap (like this) they work out at the bar after the show is over for the day.