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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 For example, ASCAP noted that the legislation reforms an "outdated music licensing system and give music creators an opportunity to obtain compensation that more accurately reflects the value of music in a free market."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 For example, ASCAP noted that the legislation reforms an "outdated music licensing system and give music creators an opportunity to obtain compensation that more accurately reflects the value of music in a free market."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.
It's not too soon for you to begin becoming an adult and quit being a stupid annoying useless prick.
But when will the President do the same?
Reading the article it sounds like streaming services are going to have to pay more to stream songs written before 72 in particular and more for everything in general. The article though is notably lacking in details, and keeps falling back to vague platitudes like
The result is a bill that moves us toward a modern music licensing landscape better founded on fair market rates and fair pay for all. At long last, a brighter tomorrow for both past and future generations of music creators is nearly upon us.”
I guess it's also nice for MOM and APPLE PIE.
How in the nine hells will they manage a brighter tomorrow for past generations, given the fact that those are DEAD?
Does this bill have provisions for necromancy?
Well, arguably the current laws do. That sounds like it's addressing copyright protection and royalty payments to a musician's estate to me. I know no detail about this, just going on what the quote says.
Anything that passes with unanimous support is generally about as good for the public as the DMCA and the PATRIOT ACT. Hey, guess who introduced the Sonny Bono Copyright Act to Congress (wherein it passed through the Senate unanimously)? It was Orrin Hatch...
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
How in the nine hells will they manage a brighter tomorrow for past generations, given the fact that those are DEAD?
*
The dead artists quite often ( nearly always ) have heirs.
Royalties from music being played or licensed are paid to those heirs.
Royalties can result in very significant sums of money being paid to the heirs, who are ( by the very definition of the word heir ) still alive.
You may not think this makes sense, but I assure you that virtually every such heir thinks it makes very good sense indeed.
Nothing in this world is free, and only a thief or a fool believes otherwise.
To give more info, this bill is a renamed/modified version of the CLASSICS Act, which was mentioned on Slashdot back in May. It extends copyright for certain works to 144 years. It was also introduced to Congress by a Republican, lest one think that only Democrats are beholden to the MAFIAA (although the unanimous support is a dead giveaway.) Actually I'm surprised no Libertarians in Congress oppose these bills.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
If you actually read the text of the bill, you will find they made wire tapping illegal without seeking copyright permissions from the person being recorded and they can charge a royalty but it would depend whether their life is a dramatic work or not, apparently.
The other weird thing, it gives absolutely no recognition of the public domain, so public domain works can be taken out by a similar new work. Fair use has also been specifically limited to legally recognised libraries, archives and educational institutions. The individual is not entitled to fair use and can have their public domain work stolen by a similar work by a pigopolists. You can rerecord a public domain work and deny the original public domain with new copyright.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
... and they can charge a royalty but it would depend whether their life is a dramatic work or not, apparently.
I would suppose that if you are worth wiretapping, your life is either dramatic or is about to become so.
Nothing in this world is free
Gravity is free.
144 years ... copyright laws are so out of whack here in US, my only hope is that other countries will shift to more rational laws we'd all be able to take advantage of services based elsewhere in the world.
Free so long as you live under its oppressive weight.
"His name was James Damore."
I just looked this up and gravity actually cost more on dvd than blu-ray for some reason. Not sure why.
So I think it's time to establish recurring royalties paid to software developers for software they have worked on too. While we're at it, builders too, because houses are rented out as well. Everybody should get rent for what they did once.
144 years ... copyright laws are so out of whack here in US, my only hope is that other countries will shift to more rational laws we'd all be able to take advantage of services based elsewhere in the world.
In 20 years or so, we'll extend this to 1728 years, just to be safe.
if anything in the Internet age, copyrights should be shorter because now artists have a much faster ability to sell and market their works than 40 years ago when every sale involved a physical medium that had to be produced and shipped about
"I would suppose that if you are worth wiretapping, your life is either dramatic or is about to become so."
For the common joe, this doesn't matter too much for him. However consider now if you wiretap a cop, in addition to getting harrassed and brought downtown on bogus charges, you'll get a potential day in court or at the very least a stiff copyright fee.
But consider that this is the kind of thing that a politician would want the most given the lives they choose to lead.
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.
Here's the EFF's take on it. Apparently it's a combination of the Music Modernization Act (a mostly positive bill updating how compensation works for artists and rights-holders on streaming services), with the CLASSICS Act (another copyright extension and expansion thing).
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?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
a copyright extension...
oh, wait. i know why they didn't...
They did.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
One thing I've never understood, and this isn't a criticism/complaint from me, is why slashdotters are so upset about the copyright on Mickey Mouse. Is it literally just that it's a best / most recent example that people would recognize? I see people talking about how copyright ends up stifling creativity by making certain things off limits... but why would creativity need to use Mickey Mouse or any other copyrighted character/design?
Because Disney rains Washington with gold and silver whenever any of Mickey's copyright's are about to expire.
"His name was James Damore."
One thing I've never understood, and this isn't a criticism/complaint from me, is why slashdotters are so upset about the copyright on Mickey Mouse. Is it literally just that it's a best / most recent example that people would recognize? I see people talking about how copyright ends up stifling creativity by making certain things off limits... but why would creativity need to use Mickey Mouse or any other copyrighted character/design?
Pretty much anyone knows of mickey mouse so it is an easy example. Would you like to pay copyright royalties on say the use of Boolean Algebra in the same way that you pay for a more than 8 sec sample of random song? Just while writing this post my computer probably did a couple hundred of operations that would require royalties payments.
The other weird thing, it gives absolutely no recognition of the public domain, so public domain works can be taken out by a similar new work.
Cite?
Fair use has also been specifically limited to legally recognised libraries, archives and educational institutions.
I don't see that. I see the section about pre-1972 works (section 1401) that describes Fair Use for these works, and it only mentions libraries, etc., but references section 107 which defines Fair Use, and which the bill does not modify. Since it doesn't change sec. 107, I don't think it changes the scope of Fair Use.
On both points, if you were right I'd expect to see the ACLU and similar organizations complaining, but I don't.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Nothing says "free market" like price fixing
They did, this bill extends copyright to 144 years.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
"is why slashdotters are so upset about the copyright on Mickey Mouse"
Because Disney, seeing that the copyright on Mickey Mouse was about to expire paid for legislation to extend copyright to keep Mickey from becoming public domain.*
Narrow Corporate interests were held as more important than the general populace's interests by our elected leaders. In my mind, this is one of many events that show that corporate money should not be allowed in the political process.
*Yes, I know they did not directly go to congress and say "here is money, give me legislation". The net effect is the same.
That, and most of Disney's library comes from making musicals out of Hans Christian Anderson, the Thousand and One Nights, the Brothers Grimm, and other old stories.
Eventually some lawyer is going to convince a court that retroactive copyright extension is expropriation without compensation, and get a lot of money.
Orin Hatch is commonly refered to as the Senator from Disney.
Many coders are "Work for Hire", so no royalties. Software should be under patent not copyright, as a cross compiler renders the files sufficiently different it should void the copyright.
During a discussion of methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.
"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to deliberately download pirated material very slowly so other users can't.
"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."
(source)
:)
On Facebook: “So, how do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?” (April 2018)
This guy is another dinosaur that his constituents keep putting in because they have no idea how to vote for anyone else and doing so would require thought or energy which are scarce resources for the average American. At least this guy has the decency to retire! Just a few months ago, McCain was incapacitated and refused to step down unless the governor agreed to appoint his wife to take his place.
Putting the CON in Congress!
...ASCAP noted that the legislation reforms an "outdated music licensing system and give music creators an opportunity to obtain compensation ...
Typically in the past whenever the music industry talks about compensation for the music writers or performers they are not speaking about the writers or performers of the music, but the music companies that own the rights to the music. Now I see a new word, "creators," and I wonder if anything has changed, or has the music industry once again purchased Congress to increase the income of the music industry while giving a mere pittance or nothing at all to the artists who write and perform the music.
Irrelevant. The copyright monopoly is not a natural thing. It is a deal to encourage the creation of works that are available to the public, and in return the public grants a monopoly on the creation of copies. If the culture of my life-time never enters the public domain during my life-time, then the limitation on copyright isn't an acceptable deal in return for granting the copyright monopoly.
Well, the senate passed it so its safe to assume its pretty horrible for the American people and probably the entire world.
Well fuck, now that we've got this nail biter figured out (whatever the hell it is, I couldn't actually tell from the summary) we can finally move on to some of the issues that are far less important than making sure the music industry can still print money. Or maybe I'm wrong, and this does help fix healthcare, balance the budget, etc.
If you asked a congresscritter theyd probably know no more about the leslation that they voted for than the vapid story 'summarization'...
parentheses or "round brackets" ( ) "square brackets" or "box brackets" [ ] braces or "curly brackets" { }
Why is the government involved in the dealings between private parties?
The music cartels have ensured they now ALL get a chunk EVERY time:
See there are several music cartels, and they fall into a segment groups.
RIAA collects royalties for "recordings". So whenever you bought a vinyl record, cassette, or CD. They collected royalties for the artists. Let's say you wanted to do a cover of a song and release it on your album. You pay RIAA. But believe it or not, that doesn't necessarily mean you can play that cover live...nope...that's a different cartel. Oh, but let's also add, that the royalties are paid to the copyright holders. Which were usually the record labels themselves, (which formed RIAA), and have spent a century ripping off artists by tacking on fraudulent expenses and failing to pay.
Performance and broadcast rights. ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC collect the performance rights. This is what classic radio stations paid. They never paid RIAA ^^^ up above. It is also what most churches pay in order to display the words of the songs on projectors, or print them in hymnal books. It is also who you pay for music in your restaurant, elevator music, and I believe your "on hold" music. Oh, but get this...once again it goes to the copyright holder. And what goes to the artist, often goes to only a select few. Huh what? Well see these royalties go to those on record as having "written" the music/lyrics. So if the drummer wasn't involved in writing the song, he doesn't get paid.
***
When the advent of digital music and streaming came about it started to cause a bunch of issues for the cartels, as they kind of got into a turf war with each other and with artists. For example, record labels signed licensing deals with the like of iTunes. But while many artists only received 15% on an album sale, licensing deals were 50/50. But the record label cartels paid the artists as if they were sales.
Then you had the digital streaming radio. Were these broadcasts (hence under BMI/ASCAP/SESAC) or were these recordings (thus under RIAA). RIAA made an argument that buffering, and caching and the like constituted recording. Mind you, radio has done this with on-air delay for years. But RIAA didn't want to take on the broadcast radio, because gee, who would buy their albums if they never played them.
Thus was the DMCA and SoundExchange. Now here is the thing, SoundExchange required every online music broadcaster to pay them a royalty per play. But SoundExchange ONLY paid out based on certain number of plays, and those plays as a percentage as a whole. Now at the time 90% of the music played was by independents and micro-labels. But here's the thing, the big labels push a handful of artists and albums in any given season. Listen to yada yada radio, and count how many songs you ever hear. Probably 80% are the same 100 songs on a given station. Hence the popularity of college radio which might play a song from some obscure band once. So suddenly, these big stations start streaming. And their playlists do something interesting...
College radio and independent streamers.
1,000 independent artists, each play 10 times = 10,000 plays
Big Music
10,000 plays, of a 100 artists. Big Music artists show up as 100 plays each.
SoundExchange did a couple of things, a minimum number of plays/royalty amount to receive a payout. And a time to claim such. Otherwise, it just went to the cartel. So basically, they now collect the royalties for all the independent bands, but never pay them out. Talk about piracy? Or even more so akin to the East India Company - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
They had succeeded once again in successfully !@#$% over the artists, the independents, college radio, and most consumers. But there were still dubious areas that the music cartels were fighting over. Hence this law, which basically ensures they ALL get a piece of the action everytime.
And once you understand all this, it's why you usually quit giving a !@#$% about all their hype on pira
Listen, dude. If you don't retroactively increase past incentives for people to have promoted the progress of the useful arts and sciences, then they'll turn out to not have done it. Is that what you want? I was listening to The Doors just last night, and I don't want my files to suddenly disappear all because some entitled jackass doesn't feel like to have been supporting Jim Morrison's drug habit.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Unless you're an heir to a copyright.
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.
I'm afraid you are just whistling Dixie if you think Americans will rebel. Oh wait. There's a charge for that.
Have gnu, will travel.
As soon as we figure out how to torrent Higgs Bosons, Gravity will be the same kind of free that music is.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
That is mass not gravity.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
it allows trumps associates to monetarise their singing to the fbi,
I thought the same thing. It only states what it's suppose to do, not what the actual provisions are. I suspect that the platitudes won't be fully realized instead we'll have something else.
And if we don't extend copyright, Elvis won't write any more songs!!!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
in Congress. The closest was Rand Paul, and he's been falling in line with the mainstream Republican party for some time now...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The other Orin Hatch Act honors the invisible glasses enthusiast by requiring that insurance companies provide coverage for such glasses and associated costs. Ironic, for a man so against healthcare (as well as affordable housing and education, and who has sought to limit DEA authority over drug companies, and who equated homosexuals to nazis).
Hey, he's a musician, so let's ignore all the shitty things he's done while cozying up to the pharmaceutical lobby and consistently trying to limit the rights of people who aren't just like him.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
What it seeks to do is make music more expensive for consumers and make it more difficult for indie musicians to make money. Business as usual, and something that has not worked to protect musicians' income in the past. Fitting that it's named after Orrin Hatch, a man who has always worked against consumers (although he has tried to make invisible glasses affordable for all so we can be like him).
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
The Supreme Court has already ruled that since "limited time" is not defined, as long as there is a limit, Congress can do whatever they want.
If you're referring to Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003), the opinion of the Supreme Court mentioned in passing the possibility of "legislative misbehavior" to circumvent "limited Times". The Court failed to find "legislative misbehavior" for one reason: the United States was harmonizing its copyright term to that of a major trading partner. The opinion implied to me that the Court might not be so kind to a subsequent extension between now and 2024 without a good excuse.
What provision of this bill, if any, applies any term extension to works other than pre-1972 sound recordings?
That's fine if you want to share the work privately between you and a cypher holder. But if I want to comment on a work publicly, or, at least, within a group of my friends, it will be illegal.
Who needs Bills of Attainder when you have selective enforcement?
I'd like to mod your signature insightful.
Being a songwriter turned out to be a remarkably easy way to take a bribe from entertainment conglomerates.
Thanks. Can't believe this wasn't in the article. Oh hell of course I can, it linked to Billboard.
GP said "retroactive", not "limited time".
Mickey mouse films, songs, books, comics, etc. are protected by copyright. Mickey Mouse the name and the "ears" logo are protected by trademark.
Mickey Mouse is just a lightning rod. It is about copyright and trademark abuse in the USA and world.
Honestly, I'd be ok if the Library of Congress wanted to add 1 item per year for long-term protection - say 500 yrs - to a list of national treasures. Mickey would be the Disney submission, clearly, and they'd win.
The first 2 Star Wars films and those characters could be added too.
Same for a few books.
A few songs deserve that protection, but never an entire album.
But extending copyright protections for all the crappy books, novellas, music, films to the same level as Mickey is just wrong.
There needs to be a way to provide protection in a smart way, while opening up initial attempts which failed ... like Space Hunter or Buck Rogers at some point, say 50 yrs.
Say 50 yrs is the default period of protection and the copyright holder can petition for 10 yrs more for $100K. The 2nd 10 yrs would cost $500K and the 3rd $1M. From there, exponential rise in costs. This way, only truly profitable works are worth protecting.
Art items, where there is a single copy would retain protection for the life of the artist.
Music ... we need to avoid the "Happy Birthday" BS again.
If you write a song tomorrow, there will be a big corporation who has the power to sell the rights to that music without your permission, and you'll have to jump through their hoops if you want to get a portion of that money. They'll keep the rest as a fee for the privilege of them screwing you over.
Further more, if you try to sell the rights to your own song without involving them, they'll DMCA the results into oblivion.
This corporation will also be able to charge people for everything in the public domain.
And nothing of value was lost.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
There's a lot in it but I'll hit some high points.
Pre-1972 works
You can basically break everything "recorded audio" into one of four groups for things pre-1973.
1. Pre-1923: All audio recording pre-1923 will have their copyright expire three years after this becomes law. Since the President has not sign this into law, that three year clock hasn't started.
2. 1923-1946: They will get a 95 year (that is expires in 2018 to 2041) copyright from date of publish, plus a five year transition period. So expires in (2023-2046).
3. 1947 - 1956: Will get a 110 year protection, no extra frills attached to that number so expires in (2057 to 2066).
4. 1957 - 1972: No matter the date, any works in this period will expire in 2067. (so 110 years to 95 years).
1973 and forward
Pretty much the copyright will exist for 95 years and pass into public domain thereafter.
States will now have a central repository for claims
When someone sues for copyright infringement or not paying royalties or whatever, it's up to the states to determine if you have a claim or not. This led to a lot of craziness as some states like Florida didn't recognize an artist's right pre-1972, but the recording company does have a right. Which gets into the two types of copyright, mechanical rights and licensing rights. The various states have all kinds of different laws about how a song writer transfers rights to the person who eventually produces the CD or audio file that you listen to. This whole process will now be streamlined...
Companies will have to figure out how to streamline this
It's left up to the big three, ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC to put together how they want to streamline this process. Been suggested that there be some kind of unified database, but the law doesn't explicitly state how they do it. There's not much recourse if they tilt the scales in their favor, but once the system is up, everyone has to respect it. The law does mention that whatever system they do setup, it has to treat mechanical rights and licensing rights AS EQUAL. So if the music studio gets 5 cents for licensing, the artist has to get 5 cents for mechanical rights.
Claims
I'm going to end it here because I'm getting really bored with this, but the law goes into a lot about how streaming services will query the database (if that's how they do it) and from that query it'll let them know how much they owe Music Studio A and Artist A per play. It also covers how states will be able to query the database and figure out how to proceed in court, and so on. Basically, whatever the big three come up with, with how to do things, it'll be up to them to get everyone on board with it. For that kind of music that's commercially sold. Now artist just performing and what not, they still have access to their copyright by nature even without having to sign up for the database. Basically, that's where you get into the "wiretapping" thing that someone else mentioned. Basically, public performances from artists get a free go, unless someone else claims it, and if they claim it, they need to cite either the database or whatever protection the state affords them. But it shifts the burden back onto the person filing the claim and not the performer.
Again, it's an insanely complex law with 118 pages and you can rest assure I've totally missed a ton of it because I'm still reading the damn thing. By all means, I'm sure fellow Slashdotters will step up and correct me where I'm most likely wrong and fill in all the holes that I've missed but that serious about thirty minutes of a read of the law that I could distill for you.
A Republican that sees nothing wrong with record labels destroying your computer apparently.
Thanks.
Well, the senate passed it so its safe to assume its pretty horrible for the American people. ...
Is it sad that this is EXACTLY what I thought as I was reading the summary?
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
I'd written my senator to complain and he basically told me this was good. What a do nothing.
Q: What did the pro-Trump AC say to the anti-Trump AC?
A: Who gives a fuck?
This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for