President Trump Signs Music Modernization Act Into Law (billboard.com)

President Donald Trump signed the Music Modernization Act (MMA) into law Thursday, officially passing what is arguably the most sweeping reform to copyright law in decades. From a report: The bill revamps Section 115 of the U.S. Copyright Act and aims to bring copyright law up to speed for the streaming era. These are the act's three main pieces of legislation:
1. The Music Modernization Act, which streamlines the music-licensing process to make it easier for rights holders to get paid when their music is streamed online.
2. The Compensating Legacy Artists for their Songs, Service, & Important Contributions to Society (CLASSICS) Act for pre-1972 recordings.
3. The Allocation for Music Producers (AMP) Act, which improves royalty payouts for producers and engineers from SoundExchange when their recordings are used on satellite and online radio (Notably, this is the first time producers have ever been mentioned in copyright law.).

What does all this mean? First, songwriters and artists will receive royalties on songs recorded before 1972. Second, the MMA will improve how songwriters are paid by streaming services with a single mechanical licensing database overseen by music publishers and songwriters. The cost of creating and maintaining this database will be paid for by digital streaming services. Third, the act will take unclaimed royalties due to music professionals and provide a consistent legal process to receive them. Further reading: Billboard.

Comments

Re:Does this mean that sometime

[J4]

If anything the MMA would make licensing costs go up. Also, on an unrelated note: I like how the post says "rights holders"... that really has very little to do with the artists.

Face it, this was inevitable

[SuperKendall]

Never is the truth of the fact there are not really different political parties more evident than in a bill like this.

The headline here said "President Trump Signs" but who among you would claim it would be any different had Hillary been elected?

This kind of unstoppable ratcheting down of government power is what really turns people off from getting involved in politics, because it doesn't matter who you support there will be no real difference in results of things that matter.

Re:Face it, this was inevitable

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to reign in the copyright extensions, you're going to have to find a different route than changing which party you vote for.

Or, you'll have to actually think about what party you should vote for, instead of continuing to support Republicrats.

Republicrats win every single election, every year, by a landslide. Even the accursed presidential race of 2016 was something like 95 to 5. But what people don't realize, is that the only way that party always wins every election is because almost everyone always votes FOR them. If people were to stop supporting the Republicrats, though, and vote AGAINST them, the numbers would be different.

You can reform copyright through voting, but you (and a lot of other people) would have to actually vote (for someone reasonable!), instead of just playing one side of the Republicrats against the other. Can you be bothered? Or would you prefer to preserve the status quo?

Re:Keeps getting better

[slack_justyb]

better deal for music artists

In all fairness, this bill has been worked on since Bush II days, around 2006-ish. The current President has done literally little to secure the passage of this outside his signature. In fact, both Bush and Obama have done little for this as well. This whole effort has mostly been decided between private parties and a few key congressional representatives.

It's almost like people forget that important law takes years, compromises between a multitude of interested parties, and bipartisanship. But yeah, forget all that, let's wax superiority on how my team is better than yours. *eyeroll*

Re: Who is still alive to receive those royalties?

[sconeu]

Come on now.... if Elvis doesn't get paid for all those pre-'72 recordings, how will he ever write more songs?

Not inevitable

[rsilvergun]

we need to start voting for candidates that refuse corporate money. There's a wing of the Democratic party that does (called "Justice Democrats"). I don't know of a GOP equivalent, but if somebody does feel free to chime in.

We can stop this any time we want, and the answer is simple: If you take corporate money then you don't get elected. Period.