[We’re continuing to post selections from the comments filed at the Copyright Office about implementation of the Music Modernization Act. There are a host of new regulations on the operation of the Mechanical Licensing Collective. It’s important to read up on these comments as they cover topics that simply are not covered by the mainstream music press. It’s the kind of thing that if you don’t make the effort to find out what is being said, the Copyright Office will make the new rules without you. Nothing sinister, it’s just how it works. You’ll wake up one day and find out your mechanical royalties haven’t been paid or the statutory mechanical royalty rate has been frozen for 14 years. A day like today.

There are a number of organizations and individuals–other than the usual suspects and conflicted parties–who are taking the time to comment extensively on the proposed new rules and you should know who they are and why they are concerned. We will select a few excerpts and link to the full filings so you can decide for yourselves. Because we believe that artists and songwriters should be told the truth.

The first issue is who owns the public’s musical works database. This is a vital question that has become strangely nuanced. We start with a great comment from the Alliance for Recorded Music represented here by Richard James Burgess of A2IM and Susan Chertkoff of RIAA.]

The Alliance for Recorded Music asks the Copyright Office to confirm who owns the public database in the temporary stewardship of the MLC, among other things in the full comment.

The Alliance for Recorded Music (“ARM”) is pleased to provide these Comments in response to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) published by the Copyright Office (the “Office”) on September 17, 2020 regarding the public musical works database and transparency of the Mechanical Licensing Collective (“MLC”). See 85 Fed. Reg. 58170.

ARM is a nonprofit coalition that represents the recorded music industry in the United States, including the major record companies and more than 700 independently owned U.S. music labels. RIAA and A2IM are both members of ARM. The companies that ARM represents collectively create, manufacture, and/or distribute nearly all of the sound recordings commercially produced and distributed in the United States. As the creators, distributors, and copyright owners of most of the commercially valuable sound recordings available through the digital music providers (“DMPs”) intending to use the new blanket mechanical license, as payors of mechanical royalties and as potential users of the MLC’s musical work database, ARM’s members have a vested interest in the regulations that govern the MLC and its public database.

Database Ownership.

The NPRM makes clear that “the statute and legislative history emphasize that the database is meant to benefit the music industry overall and is not ‘owned’ by the collective itself.” 85 Fed. Reg. at 58172. It also notes that the MLC “agrees that the data in the public MLC musical works database is not owned by the MLC or its vendor.” Id. We agree with this view and were disappointed to find no corresponding clarification of this important concept in the proposed regulations. To avoid any future misunderstandings, and in the interest of consistency with the statute itself, we encourage the Office to make this point explicit in the regulations.

Read the full comment here