[Songwriters outside the United States should pay close attention to the disconnect between their CMOs and the MLC. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that The MLC is very US-centric and at that very Anglo-American centric in its myopia. We haven’t done a point by point comparison, but we have posted CISAC and BIEM’s comments in the past and we can’t help noticing that their current comment has a few references to prior comments that seem to have been largely ignored. They are very polite about it (maybe too polite about it) but the consequences of ignoring the CMOs is that any ex-US songwriter whose songs are exploited in the US and who relies on their CMO to collect their US earnings may find their streaming mechanicals reduced to zero after 1/1/21 if the HFA database that The MLC is using is not properly mapped.

The MLC’s continued disregard for CMOs is puzzling unless you think perhaps that The MLC doesn’t think CMOs will continue to play a role in the international copyright system. Whatever The MLC’s long-term goals, it is clear that the Music Modernization Act was drafted from an entirely US-centric point of view and that the concerns of our international partners were never taken into account while at the same time forcing them to accept the MMA’s terms. Another example of the haphazard approach that is rapidly becoming the hallmark of the MMA.]

Read the entire comment here.

The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (“CISAC”) and the International Organisation representing Mechanical Rights Societies (“BIEM”) would like to thank the U.S. Copyright Office (“the Office”) for the opportunity to provide comments on the Proposed Rulemaking on the Public Musical Works Database (“Database”) and Transparency of the Mechanical Licensing Collective (“MLC”). This submission follows our previous comments to the Office, in particular on the Notifications of Inquiry from September 2019 and April 2020 (SG19-1116; SG19-1284; SG20-0614).

As already explained in previous submissions, CISAC and BIEM are international organisations representing Collective Management Organisations (“CMOs”) worldwide that are entrusted with the management of creators’ rights and, as such, have a direct interest in the Regulations governing the functioning of the Database and the transparency of MLC’s operations. CISAC and BIEM would like to thank the Office for highlighting the existence and particularity of entities such as CMOs that are not referred to in the MMA (page 58175 of the Proposed Rulemaking1) and should be treated equally.

CISAC and BIEM are grateful that some of their comments were taken into account by the Office in the Proposed Rulemaking, but would like to reiterate their concerns on certain provisions which, if not adequately addressed, may affect the administration of rights of foreign rightsholders in the US, as follows…

A/ Copyright ownership information and shares

As part of the list of mandatory information for matched works, the Office lists “the copyright owner of the musical work (or share thereof), and the ownership percentage of that owner” (for unmatched works, it is the same as long as the owner has been identified but not located).

For the sake of clarity, we reiterate the need to have CMOs clearly recognized as “copyright owners” under the provisions of the Proposed Rulemaking. Indeed, as already explained in several of our previous submissions, outside the U.S., the “copyright ownership” of the work is attributed to the CMOs managing the mechanical rights of the so-called BIEM repertoire. This would mean that the “copyright owner” share as defined in the Proposed Rulemaking should refer specifically to the share controlled by the CMO as administrator of the work, as opposed to the actual composer/songwriter share.

This clarification also has direct consequences with respect to the determination of sensitive and confidential information which cannot be made publicly accessible through the Database, as further argued in CISAC and BIEM’s comments to the Proposed Rulemaking on Treatment of Confidential Information (see SG20-0562).

If, however, it is considered indispensable for the DMPs and the MLC to have creators’ information and percentage shares for identification and distribution purposes, such data should not be disclosed to third-party entities or made publicly accessible in the Database for the reasons stated in our previous submission. In particular, in the 28 May 2020 comments to the Proposed Rulemaking on Treatment of Confidential Information submitted to the Office,2 CISAC and BIEM explained that there seemed to be no business need to include the creator percentage shares in the musical works, as this information was not required to license or distribute musical works, and constitutes particularly sensitive and confidential financial and business information for creators and their representatives.

Personal identifiable information

CISAC and BIEM fully agrees with the Office with regards to the withdrawal of the date of birth from the list of mandatory public information to be included in the Database. However, CISAC and BIEM continue to be very much concerned with the general compliance of MLC’s operations, including the Database, with data protection laws. As for now, the Proposed Rulemakings are silent on this, although this is a key issue for CMOs worldwide and probably also for other rightsholders.

CISAC and BIEM thus respectfully suggest that the Regulations include clear language on the MLC’s full compliance with data protection laws, and in particular with the European General Data Protection Regulation, as the MLC will process personal data of EU creators. This means that the Database shall be construed in compliance with the GDPR requirements from the building-up of the system (i.e. privacy by design) until the processing operations, providing the requisite security guarantees.

Point of contact for inquiries and Complaints

CISAC and BIEM welcome the inclusion of the need for the MLC to provide a point of contact for inquiries or Complaints. However, as requested in our submission SG20-0614, the Proposed Rulemaking should go further and also make mandatory the publication of the rules that will be applied by the MLC’s dispute resolution committee. This will help to streamline and give more transparency to the dispute resolution process, which will benefit both copyright owners and DMPs.