You should read this post by three Nashville songwriters published in the Nashville trade website Music Row who evidently are at the center of the negotiations and decisionmaking process on frozen mechanicals at the Copyright Royalty Board and have been for many years.  (One of the signers, Lee Miller, once considered running for Marsha Blackburn’s congressional seat on the Republican ticket in 2017.)  It is a heartfelt effort, although you do have to ask yourself where are the publishers?

The post is a very illuminating look inside the CRB process that many find mysterious, and also is a good demonstration of some of the concerns expressed by writers on The Trichordist on this subject.  The three accomplished Nashville songwriters add some color commentary to the proceedings, particularly for those who may have been in high school or college during the 2006 CRB frozen mechanical rate setting that many think caused the problem. 

The songwriters express a good deal of frustration and passion which is as understandable as the frustration and passion of those who feel that the CRB process is as inequitable, unwieldy and prohibitively expensive as these songwriters seem to be telling us that it is.  Someone may want to do a point by point discussion of the many good issues that the three Nashville songwriters raise, but a couple things jump out.

First, they defend the streaming mechanical rate from the last CRB. No one criticized the streaming mechanical rate in the last CRB proceeding that is currently under appeal.  If the rate survives the appeal and reworking at the CRB, and makes its way through the MLC, every songwriter should expect to see the promised increase in their streaming royalty check.  That would be a great thing and everyone no doubt thanks everyone involved for the effort.  The topic, though, was primarily the frozen mechanical not the streaming mechanical.

Also, who paid the $20 million cost for “our side” to participate in the CRB that the three Nashville songwriters refer to?  Surely the publishers did not ask the songwriters to open up their own pocketbooks, even though each has been extraordinarily successful in their genre. 

We couldn’t find any discussion by the three Nashville songwriters of what terms are in the private settlements referred to in their own filing.  The point that many have made about public commentary about the private settlements is that the Copyright Royalty Judges can decide on who is “bound” by the settlements and that it is the motion at issue as filed that gets commented on unless the Judges ask that it be supplemented.  Commenters said the “who” should be broadly construed.  They also said that the “what” is crucially important. Many have made the point that public commentary about the settlements requires that all the terms of the settlements are made public. Until made public, the terms are private.  The only thing we know about the settlements from the three Nashville songwriters’ own CRB filing is the terms that are disclosed—frozen rates.  Even though their filing refers to settlements, we still don’t know anything further.  Maybe we will in coming days.  Any additional terms that exist may not be remarkable, but they might be.  Presumably this is the kind of thing that important people in the negotiation process would know due to their special position.  We just don’t know.

The three Nashville songwriters apparently believed they had a mandate to make decisions about what was worth pursuing in the CRB.  If they did have that belief, presumably they base that belief on some kind of vote.  Since their CRB settlement impacts every songwriter in the world, that’s the magnitude of decision that some might think is deserving of a vote of their membership, not just a board vote if that’s what happened—we just don’t know.  It’s a real privilege to be in the position to make those kinds of decisions, so you might well think that it’s the kind of thing you wouldn’t want to take on by yourself or with only the approval of a limited number of people.  But maybe not. 

Be sure to read this post and thank these songwriters for their service to the community.  They certainly deserve it.