Mastodon has gone to Washington D.C. to advocate for the Music Modernization Act.
The Music Modernization Act was introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler and six other members of the House of Representatives. This is considered to be the most important music copyright bill in the generation, and consists of three parts. This act deals with the reorganization of royalties and how they are gathered and given out. The bill creates a way to improve the situation to manage royalties and streaming services, and also give more money to the publishers and songwriters, and also gives them more control. This organization will add onto the Fair Play Fair Pay Act, an act that “extends a sound recording copyright owner’s rights to include the exclusive right to perform or authorize the performance of the recording publicly by means of any audio transmission”.
There are still problems with the bill introduced there is complexity and takes more money to fix who controls and pays for the royalties. Even though there is more control given to publishers, there’s still conflict over the fact that fact that the streaming services can no longer be sued for statutory damages on the basis of copyright infringement. The act is said to be a simple solution to the situation with streaming services, publishers and royalties but even then there are still problems that are being added on.
According to the press release, Brann Dailor of Mastodon has explained saying “Michele Caplinger is our Grammys Georgia representative. There was an awards ceremony for some members of Congress that have been working on a comprehensive bill that modernizes royalty rates for music creators and producers, engineers, etc. Little Big Town was also honored for their many years of advocacy. We were there representing our fellow songwriters and musicians and speaking with congressmen, senators and law makers to share our personal stories to be in the forefront of their minds as this bill could be up before the senate within the next two weeks! Super exiting to be part of this long overdue historical change to the way music creators are compensated for their work.”
The matter of publishers and songwriters getting the royalties they earned has gained bipartisan support. Rep. Collins told Billboard “The Music Modernization Act reflects bipartisan and industry consensus that the music licensing system is broken and that Congress is in a unique position, with this bill, to take major steps to fix the policy undergirding that system.”
(Photo Credit: Boston Lynn Schulz)
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