Category: Music Modernization Act

Now with added retroactive acrobatics: @DamianCollins calls on UK Prime Minister to stop Google’s “Text and Data Mining” Circus

By Chris Castle

Damian Collins (former chair of the UK Parliament’s Digital Culture Media and Sport Select Committee) warns of Google’s latest artificial intelligence shenanigans in a must-read opinion piece in the Daily Mail. Mr. Collins highlights Google’s attempt to lobby its way into what is essentially a retroactive safe harbor to protect Google and its confederates in the AI land grab. (Safe harbors aka pirate utopias.)

While Mr. Collins writes about Google’s efforts to rewrite the laws of the UK to free ride in his home country which is egregious bullying, the episode he documents is instructive for all of us. If Google & Co. will do it to the Mother of Parliaments, it’s only a matter of time until Google & Co. do the same everywhere or know the reason why. Their goal is to hoover up all the world’s culture that the AI platforms have not scraped already and–crucially–to get away with it. And as Austin songwriter Guy Forsyth says, “…nothing says freedom like getting away with it.”

The timeline of AI’s appropriation of all the world’s culture is a critical understanding to appreciate just how depraved Big Tech’s unbridled greed really is. The important thing to remember is that AI platforms like Google have been scraping the Internet to train their AI for some time now, possibly many years. This apparently includes social media platforms they control. My theory is that Google Books was an early effort at digitization for large language models to support products like corpus machine translation as a predecessor to Gemini (“your twin”) and other Google AI products. We should ask Ray Kurzweil.

There is starting to be increasing evidence that this is exactly what these people are up to. 

The New York Times Uncovers the Crimes

According to an extensive long-form report in the New York Times by a team of very highly respected journalists, it turns out that Google has been planning this “Text and Data Mining” land grab for some time. At the very moment YouTube was issuing press releases about their Music AI Incubator and their “partners”–Google was stealing anything that was not nailed down that anyone had hosted on their massive platforms, including Google Docs, Google Maps, and…YouTube. The Times tells us:

Google transcribed YouTube videos to harvest text for its A.I. models, five people with knowledge of the company’s practices said. That potentially violated the copyrights to the videos, which belong to their creators….Google said that its A.I. models “are trained on some YouTube content,” which was allowed under agreements with YouTube creators, and that the company did not use data from office apps outside of an experimental program. 

I find it hard to believe that YouTube was both allowed to transcribe and scrape under all its content deals, or that they parsed through all videos to find the unprotected ones that fall victim to Google’s interpretation of the YouTube terms of use. So as we say in Texas, that sounds like bullshit for starters. 

How does this relate to the Text and Data Mining exception that Mr. Collins warns of? Note that the NYT tells us “Google transcribed YouTube videos to harvest text.” That’s a clue.

As Mr. Collins tells us: 

Google [recently] published a policy paper entitled: Unlocking The UK’s AI Potential.

What’s not to like?, you might ask. Artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionise our economy and we don’t want to be left behind as the rest of the world embraces its benefits.

But buried in Google’s report is a call for a ‘text and data mining’ (TDM) exception to copyright. 

This TDM exception would allow Google to scrape the entire history of human creativity from the internet without permission and without payment.

And, of course, Mr. Collins is exactly correct, it’s safe to assume that’s exactly what Google have in mind. 

The Conspiracy of Dunces and the YouTube Fraud

In fairness, it wasn’t just Google ripping us off, but Google didn’t do anything to stop it as far as I can tell. One thing to remember is that YouTube was, and I think still is, not very crawlable by outsiders. It is almost certainly the case that Google would know who was crawling youtube.com, such as Bingbot, DuckDuckBot, Yandex Bot, or Yahoo Slurp if for no other reason that those spiders were not googlebot. With that understanding, the Times also tells us:

OpenAI researchers created a speech recognition tool called Whisper. It could transcribe the audio from YouTube videos, yielding new conversational text that would make an A.I. system smarter.

Some OpenAI employees discussed how such a move might go against YouTube’s rules, three people with knowledge of the conversations said. YouTube, which is owned by Google, prohibits use of its videos for applications that are “independent” of the video platform. [Whatever “independent” means.]

Ultimately, an OpenAI team transcribed more than one million hours of YouTube videos, the people said. The team included Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, who personally helped collect the videos, two of the people said. The texts were then fed into a system called GPT-4, which was widely considered one of the world’s most powerful A.I. models and was the basis of the latest version of the ChatGPT chatbot….

OpenAI eventually made Whisper, the speech recognition tool, to transcribe YouTube videos and podcasts, six people said. But YouTube prohibits people from not only using its videos for “independent” applications, but also accessing its videos by “any automated means (such as robots, botnets or scrapers).” [And yet it happened…]

OpenAI employees knew they were wading into a legal gray area, the people said, but believed that training A.I. with the videos was fair use. [Or could they have paid for the privilege?]

And strangely enough, many of the AI platforms sued by creators raise “fair use” as a defense (if not all of the cases) which is strangely reminiscent of the kind of crap we have been hearing from these people since 1999.

Now why might Google have permitted OpenAI to crawl YouTube and transcribe videos (and who knows what else)? Probably because Google was doing the same thing. In fact, the Times tells us:

Some Google employees were aware that OpenAI had harvested YouTube videos for data, two people with knowledge of the companies said. But they didn’t stop OpenAI because Google had also used transcripts of YouTube videos to train its A.I. models, the people said. That practice may have violated the copyrights of YouTube creators. So if Google made a fuss about OpenAI, there might be a public outcry against its own methods, the people said.

So Google and its confederate OpenAI may well have conspired to commit massive copyright infringement against the owner of a valid copyright, did so willingly, and for purposes of commercial advantage and private financial gain. (Attempts to infringe are prohibited to the same extent as the completed act). The acts of these confederates vastly exceed the limits for criminal prosecution for both infringement and conspiracy.

But to Mr. Collins’ concern, the big AI platforms transcribed likely billions of hours of YouTube videos to manipulate text and data–you know, TDM.

The New Retroactive Safe Harbor: The Flying Googles Bring their TDM Circus Act to the Big Tent With Retroactive Acrobatics

But also realize the effect of the new TDM exception that Google and their Big Tech confederates are trying to slip past the UK government (and our own for that matter). A lot of the discussion about AI rulemaking acts as if new rules would be for future AI data scraping. Au contraire mes amis–on the contrary, the bad acts have already happened and they happened on an unimaginable scale.

So what Google is actually trying to do is get the UK to pass a retroactive safe harbor that would deprive citizens of valuable property rights–and also pass a prospective safe harbor so they can keep doing the bad acts with impunity.

Fortunately for UK citizens, the UK Parliament has not passed idiotic retroactive safe harbor legislation like the U.S. Congress has. I am, of course, thinking of the vaunted Music Modernization Act (MMA) that drooled its way to a retroactive safe harbor for copyright infringement, a shining example of the triumph of corruption that has yet to be properly challenged in the US on Constitutional grounds. 

There’s nothing like the MMA absurdity in the UK, at least not yet. However, that retroactive safe harbor was not lost on Google, who benefited directly from it. They loved it. They hung it over the mantle next to their other Big Game trophy, the DMCA. And now they’d like to do it again for the triptych of legislative taxidermy.

Because make no mistake–a retroactive safe harbor would be exactly the effect of Google’s TDM exception. Not to mention it would also be a form of retroactive eminent domain, or what the UK analogously might call the compulsory purchase of property under the Compulsory Purchase of Property Act. Well…”purchase” might be too strong a word, more like “transfer” because these people don’t intend to pay for a thing.

The effect of passing Google’s TDM exception would be to take property rights and other personal rights from UK citizens without anything like the level of process or compensation required under the Compulsory Purchase of Property–even when the government requires the sale of private property to another private entity (such as a railroad right of way or a utility easement).

The government is on very shaky ground with a TDM exception imposed by the government for the benefit of a private company, indeed foreign private companies who can well afford to pay for it. It would be missing government oversight on a case-by-base basis, no proper valuation, and for entirely commercial purposes with no public benefit. In the US, it would likely violate the Takings Clause of our Constitution, among other things.

It’s Not Just the Artists

Mr. Collins also makes a very important point that might get lost among the stars–it’s not just the stars that AI is ripping off–it is everyone. As the New York Times story points out (and it seems that there’s more whistleblowers on this point every day), the AI platforms are hoovering up EVERYTHING that is on the Internet, especially on their affiliated platforms. That includes baby videos, influencers, everything.

This is why it is cultural appropriation on a grand scale, indeed a scale of depravity that we haven’t seen since the Nurenberg Trials. A TDM exception would harm all Britons in one massive offshoring of British culture.

[This post first appeared on MusicTech.Solutions]

by Trichordist Editor

The Intention of Justice:  In Which The MLC Loses its Way on a Copyright Adventure

by Chris Castle

ARTHUR

Let’s get back to justice…what is justice?  What is the intention of justice?  The intention of justice is to see that the guilty people are proven guilty and that the innocent are freed.  Simple, isn’t it?  
Only it’s not that simple.

From And Justice for All, screenplay written by Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson

Something very important happened at the MLC on July 9:  The Copyright Office overruled the MLC on the position the MLC (and, in fairness, the NMPA) took on who was entitled to post-termination mechanical royalties under the statutory blanket license.  What’s important about the ruling is not just that the Copyright Office ruled that the MLC’s announced position was “incorrect”—it is that it corrected the MLC’s position that was in direct contravention of prior Copyright Office guidance.  (If this is all news to you, you can get up to speed with this helpful post about the episode on the Copyright Office website or read John Barker’s excellent comment in the rulemaking.)

“Guidance” is a kind way to put it, because the Copyright Office has statutory oversight for the MLC.  That means that on subjects yet to be well defined in a post-Loper world (the Supreme Court decision that reversed “Chevron deference”), I think it’s worth asking whether the Copyright Office is going to need to get more involved with the operations of the MLC.  Alternatively, Congress may have to amend Title I of the Music Modernization Act to fill in the blanks.  Either way, the Copyright Office’s termination ruling is yet another example of why I keep saying that the MLC is a quasi-governmental organization that is, in a way, neither fish nor fowl.  It is both a private organization and a government agency somewhat like the Tennessee Valley Authority.  Whatever it is ultimately ruled to be, it is not like the Harry Fox Agency which in my view has labored for decades under the misapprehension that its decisions carry the effect of law.  Shocking, I know.  But whether it’s the MLC or HFA, when they decide not to pay your money unless you sue them, it may as well be the law.

The MLC’s failure to follow the Copyright Office guidance is not a minor thing.  This obstreperousness has led to significant overpayments to pre-termination copyright owners (who may not even realize they were getting screwed).  This behavior by the MLC is what the British call “bolshy”, a wonderful word describing one who is uncooperative, recalcitrant, or truculent according to the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang.  The word is a pejorative adjective derived from Bolshevik.  “Bolshy” invokes lawlessness.

In a strange coincidence, the two most prominent public commenters supporting the MLC’s bolshy position on post-termination payments were the MLC itself and the NMPA, which holds a nonvoting board seat on the MLC’s board of directors.  This stick-togetherness is very reminiscent of what it was like dealing with HFA when the NMPA owned it.  It was hard to tell where one started and the other stopped just like it is now.  (I have often said that a nonvoting board seat is very much like a “board observer” appointed by investors in a startup to essentially spy on the company’s board of directors.  I question why the MLC even needs nonvoting board seats at all given the largely interlocking boards, aside from the obvious answer that the nonvoters have those seats because the lobbyists wrote themselves into Title I of the MMA—you know, the famous “spirit of the MMA”.)

Having said that, the height of bolshiness is captured in this quotation (89 FR 58586 (July 9, 2024)) from the Copyright Office ruling about public comments which the Office had requested (at 56588):

The only commenter to question the Office’s authority was NMPA, which offered various arguments for why the Office lacks authority to issue this [post-termination] rule. None are persuasive. [Ouch.]

NMPA first argued that the Office has no authority under section 702 of the Copyright Act or the MMA to promulgate rules that involve substantive questions of copyright law. This is clearly incorrect. [Double ouch.]

The Office ‘‘has statutory authority to issue regulations necessary to administer the Copyright Act’’ and ‘‘to interpret the Copyright Act.’’  As the [Copyright Office notice of proposed rulemaking] detailed, ‘‘[t]he Office’s authority to interpret [the Copyright Act]  in the context of statutory licenses in particular has long been recognized.’’

Well, no kidding.

What concerns me today is that wherever it originated, the net effect of the MLC’s clearly erroneous and misguided position on termination payments is like so many other “policies” of the MLC:  The gloomy result always seems to be they don’t pay the right person or don’t pay anyone at all in a self-created dispute that so far has proven virtually impossible to undo without action by the Copyright Office (which has other and perhaps better things to do, frankly).  The Copyright Office, publishers and songwriters then have to burn cycles correcting the mistake.  

In the case of the termination issue, the MLC managed to do both: They either paid the wrong person or they held the money.  That’s a pretty neat trick, a feat of financial gymnastics for which there should be an Olympic category.  Or at least a flavor of self-licking ice cream.

The reason the net effect is of concern is that this adventure in copyright has led to a massive screwup in payments illustrating what we call the legal maxim of fubar fugazi snafu.  And no one will be fired.  In fact, we don’t even know which person is responsible for taking the position in the first place.  Somebody did, somebody screwed up, and somebody should be held accountable.

Mr. Barker crystalized this issue in his comment on the Copyright Office termination rulemaking, which I call to your attention (emphasis added):

I do have a concern related to the current matter at hand, which translates to a long-term uneasiness which I believe is appropriate to bring up as part of these comments. That concern is, how did the MLC’s proposed policies [on statutory termination payments] come in to being in the first place? 

The Copyright Office makes clear in its statements in the Proposed Rules publication that “…the MLC adopted a dispute policy concerning termination that does not follow the Office’s rulemaking guidance.”, and that the policy “…decline(d) to heed the Office’s warning…”. Given that the Office observed that “[t]he accurate distribution of royalties under the blanket license to copyright owners is a core objective of the MLC”, it is a bit alarming that the MLC’s proposed policies got published in the first place. 

I am personally only able to come up with two reasons why this occurred. Either the MLC board did not fully understand the impact on termination owners and the future administration of those royalties, or the MLC board DID realize the importance, and were intentional with their guidelines, despite the Copyright Office’s warnings. 

Both conclusions are disturbing, and I believe need to be addressed.

Mr. Barker is more gentlemanly about it than I am, and I freely admit that I have no doubt failed the MLC in courtesy.  I do have a tendency to greet only my brothers, the gospel of Matthew notwithstanding.  Yet it irks me to no end that no one has been held accountable for this debacle and the tremendous productivity cost (and loss) of having to fix it.  Was the MLC’s failed quest to impose its will on society covered by the Administrative Assessment?  If so, why?  If not, who paid for it?  And we should call the episode by its name—it is a debacle, albeit a highly illustrative one. 

But we must address this issue soon and address it unambiguously.  The tendency of bureaucracy is always to grow and the tendency of non-profit organizations is always to seek power as a metric in the absence of for-profit revenue.  Often there are too many people in the organization who are involved in decision-making so that responsibility is too scattered.  

When something goes wrong as it inevitably does, no one ever gets blamed, no one ever gets fired, and it’s very hard to hold any one person accountable because everything is too diffused.  Instead of accepting that inevitable result and trying to narrow accountability down to one person so that an organization is manageable and functioning, the reflex response is often to throw more resources at the problem when more resources, aka money, is obviously not the solution.  The MLC already has more money than they know what to do with thanks to the cornucopia of cash from the Administrative Assessment.  That deep pocket has certainly not led to peace in the valley.

Someone needs to get their arms around this issue and introduce accountability into the process.  That is either the Copyright Office acting in its oversight role, the blanket license users acting in their paymaster role through the DLC, or a future litigant who just gets so fed up with the whole thing that they start suing everyone in sight.   

Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote in Summa Theologica that a just war requires a just cause, a rightful intention and the authority of the sovereign (Summa, Second Part of the Second Part, Question 40).  So it is with litigation.  We have a tendency to dismiss litigation as wasteful or unnecessary with a jerk of the knee, yet that is overbroad and actually wrong.  In some cases the right of the people to sue to enforce their rights is productive, necessary, inevitable and—hopefully—in furtherance of a just cause like its historical antecedents in trial by combat.  

It is also entirely in keeping with our Constitution.  The just lawsuit allows the judiciary to right a wrong when other branches of government fail to act, or as James Madison wrote in Federalist 10, so the government by “…its several constituent parts may…be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.”  

That’s a lesson the MLC, Inc. had to learn the hard way.  Let’s not do that again, shall we not?

This post first appeared on the MusicTech.Solutions blog.

by Trichordist

The Coming COLA Adjustment for Mechanical Royalties on Physical and Downloads

By Chris Castle

We’re about to experience an historical event—the U.S. government’s statutory mechanical rate for physical and permanent downloads will increase twice in 12 months.  This is because the record companies agreed in “Phonorecords IV” to raise the statutory mechanical rate from 9.1¢ to 12¢ for physical and permanent downloads (with corresponding long-song royalties) effective January 1, 2023.

This is quite a change from the frozen rate that lasted for 17 years.  Not only did the labels agree to increase the rate to 12¢, they agreed to index that increased rate to inflation annually starting in 2024.

Indexing requires increasing the 12¢ rate to current inflation based on a “COLA” or “cost of living adjustment” by applying an uplift formula to the 12¢ rate.  That formula itself is a function of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index which itself comes in a number of varieties. A common version of CPI that the record companies agreed to is the “Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (U.S. City Average, all items),” or “CPI-U.”   The CPI-U is weighted toward the cost of living for urban consumers.  (Compare CPI-U to the “CPI-W” or Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers which is used by Social Security, for example.)

We have experienced a time of high inflation for the last few years and given the indicators, we are likely to continue to suffer with inflation for years to come.  So the labels’ agreement to a COLA protects the purchasing power of the hard-won mechanical royalty for physical and downloads and may end up being a critical deal point over the 5 year rate period covered by Phonorecords IV.

The statutory basis for the COLA is found in 37 CFR §385.11(a)(2):

Annual rate adjustment. The Copyright Royalty Judges shall adjust the royalty rates in paragraph (a)(1) of this section each year to reflect any changes occurring in the cost of living as determined by the most recent Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (U.S. City Average, all items) (CPI–U) published by the Secretary of Labor before December 1 of the preceding year. The calculation of the rate for each year shall be cumulative based on a calculation of the percentage increase in the CPI–U from the CPI–U published in November, 2022 (the Base Rate) and shall be made according to the following formulas: for the per-work rate, (1 + (Cy−Base Rate)/Base Rate) × 12¢, rounded to the nearest tenth of a cent; for the per-minute rate, (1 + (Cy−Base Rate)/Base Rate) × 2.31¢, rounded to the nearest hundredth of a cent; where Cy is the CPI–U published by the Secretary of Labor before December 1 of the preceding year. The Judges shall publish notice of the adjusted fees in the Federal Register at least 25 days before January 1. The adjusted fees shall be effective on January 1.

One must have the published CPI-U in order to make the COLA calculation.  The CPI is published by Bureau of Labor Statistics (technically “by the Secretary of Labor”) on a regularly published schedule.  If the regulations require that the relevant CPI-U must be published before December 1, that will be the CPI-U for October to be published next week on November 14 because the CPI-U for November won’t be published until December 12 (which of course is after December 1).

According to the Cleveland Federal Reserve, month over month inflation for November is projected to be pretty much the same as October.  So based on the Phonorecords IV Subpart B formula, the minimum statutory rate will likely increase from 12¢ to approximately 12.41¢ starting January 1.

Keep an eye out for the October CPI-U next week when it is announced by BLS at 8:30am ET on November 14.  The Copyright Royalty Board is to publish the new COLA-adjusted mechanical rate in the Federal Register, on or about December 8.  And remember that the same calculation with then-current CPI-U will apply in December 2024, 2025, 2026 and 2027.

Remember, this COLA rate increase only applies to physical and permanent download configurations, not to streaming.  This is because the services refused to engage on the topic.  There’s really no good explanation for why the streaming services refused to give a COLA.  A COLA really should be mandatory given that the government essentially takes away the songwriters’ ability to bargain for their inflation expectations during a five year rate period.

by thetrichordist

The Copyright Office Sends Modernized Regrets

As we reported in a prior post about George Johnson’s grass roots effort to ask the Copyright Office to review that status of the compulsory license which is the raison d’être for the existence of their Mechanical Licensing Collective, the US Copyright Office turned him down. The Office has refused to look into a study on the continued viability of the compulsory license in the United States as part of the five year review of their Mechanical Licensing Collective. The five year review is the perfect opportunity to consider whether the compulsory license itself is fit for purpose.

This is particularly true after the near-fiasco of the MLC’s testimony to the House IP Subcommittee which is well worth watching, particularly the Subcommittee’s “show me the money” questioning about what the MLC is doing with the hundreds of millions that the MLC is “investing”. The only reason the MLC has these hundreds of millions is because of the compulsory license. This requires an explanation that nobody seems interested in making to the songwriters like George Johnson.

It seems to us impossible to consider one without the other and we appreciate George Johnson taking the time to make that argument to the Copyright Office. In coming days we will have some additional thoughts about the continued viability of the compulsory and look forward to a robust debate on the topic. We may have to conduct that conversation outside of the Imperial City, but that’s OK. There are many international interests involved as well as motivated constituents all around this country.

Here is the Copyright Office rejection letter. There are a number of assumptions it makes, such as the negotiation of Title I of the MMA was a free and open process and not a star chamber for the insiders. We’ll get to these in coming days.

Dear George,

Thank you for your letter requesting a study concerning repealing the section 115 compulsory license.  As you know, the section 115 license was previously explored by the Office and it was recently amended by Congress as part of the Music Modernization Act (MMA).  As the changes made to the license through the MMA have been effective only for the past two and a half years, the Office believes that it would be premature at this time to engage in a new study of the section 115 license.

To briefly recap this history, in 2015, the Copyright Office issued its policy report “Copyright and the Music Marketplace,” which reviewed the then-current conditions affecting the U.S. music marketplace and made various suggestions for reform, including with respect to the section 115 license.  The report was built on input we received from organizations and individuals, including yourself, who shared their insights and experiences in written comments and in roundtable discussions. 

With respect to the section 115 license, the report observed that “[m]any parties have called for either the complete elimination or modernization of section 115, citing issues such as the administrative challenges of the license, the inaccuracy and slowness of the ratesetting process, and frustration with government-mandated rates.”  Ultimately, however, the Office recommended modernizing, but not repealing, the section 115 license.  While the Office was sympathetic to arguments in favor of repealing the license, it was also concerned that eliminating the license would cause extraordinary difficulties associated with negotiating individual licenses for the millions of musical works offered on digital music providers’ services.

Three years later, Congress updated the section 115 license as a part of the MMA—an Act that Senator Grassley referred to as “the product of long and hard negotiations and compromise.”  One of the Act’s cornerstones was the new compulsory blanket section 115 license, which became available on January 1, 2021.  

Although we do not intend to undertake a new study of the section 115 license at this time, we want to remind you that the Office welcomes input from stakeholders and members of the public to better inform our decision-making.  I would like to thank you again for your letter and any additional views that you may wish to provide to the Office in the future.

Sincerely,

Suzy Wilson

General Counsel and Associate Register of Copyrights

U.S. Copyright Office

by Trichordist Editor

Senator Leahy Says Show Me the Money on the MLC’s Black Box

Readers will recall that the Mechanical Licensing Collective, Inc. aka the MLC, is sitting on a pile of other peoples money (remember that the Mechanical Licensing Collective is the digital music services’ one-of-a-kind joint venture quango mandated by the good folks from Washington who are here to help). We estimate that the MLC has got at least $500 million socked away at City National Bank in Nashville collecting dust–or interest. More on that later. This would include current black box accruing since January 1, 2021 plus $424 million or so in historical black box that was voluntarily paid to the MLC by the DSPs in February 2021–an inexplicably large sum given all the DSP audits over the years. 

And the clock is ticking, tick tock, tick tock.

Readers will also recall that the U.S. Copyright Office is responsible for the operations of the MLC, or as they say in Washington where all the children are above average and no one is responsible for anything, “has oversight” which usually means “gets to blame somebody else” when the fan takes over. And of course the Congress has oversight of the Copyright Office. Every so often, the head of the Copyright Office gets the rare joy of attending an oversight hearing at the Congress which happened recently and resulted in certain follow up “questions for the record” that get answered in writing. 

The MLC and its employees should get one thing straight–they are about to be blamed for some grubby practices when Congress wants you to show them the money. And you will be thrown under the bus, count on it. Just think–you could have stolen the money the old fashioned way. In the dark. But no, you wanted the government to force songwriters to deal with you and you could not stop congratulating yourselves about how smart you were. Well, you wanted it, and now you’ve gotten it.

Senator Patrick Leahy, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, submitted some rather pointed questions about the MLC black box which drew a rather pointed response:

Question: The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC), the organization created under the Music Modernization Act to collect mechanical royalties for songwriters and publishers, also has an obligation to identify the owners of musical works that have accrued royalties when the owners are not known. The major publishers who largely control the MLC keep the royalties from unidentified works if the owners cannot be found. Over the past year, the MLC has identified only a tiny fraction of the rightful owners. [You were warned.] The major publishers stand to gain hundreds of millions of dollars from that failure to find rightful owners. We did not intend to create a disincentive for the MLC and major publishers to find the rightful owners of music works.

What can the Copyright Office do to help ensure that the MLC is working to make sure that rightful owners of music works are identified and paid?

Response: The Mechanical Licensing Collective (“MLC”) should make every reasonable effort to ensure that royalties are paid to the rightful owners of musical works. According to the MLC’s first annual report, it has distributed over $420 million under the new blanket license for uses reported in 2021, with a steadily improving match rate reported to be approximately 88% of all royalties. With respect to the historical, pre-2021, unmatched royalties, which were reported to be about $426 million, the annual report says that the MLC recently started distributing those that it has been able to match. It also says that the MLC has begun making associated usage data for historical unmatched royalties available to copyright owners, which will facilitate further claiming and matching. Notably, the MLC plans to wait to process historical unmatched royalties from the Phonorecords III rate period until the Copyright Royalty Judges finalize those rates in the ongoing remand proceeding and digital music providers provide adjusted reports of usage and royalty payments. It is the Office’s understanding that the bulk of historical unmatched royalties come from that period. [More on this PR III issue below]

The Copyright Office has been active on the issue of matching musical works to accurately pay copyright owners. Last year, we issued a report recommending best practices for the MLC to consider to reduce the incidence of unclaimed royalties. The report’s comprehensive recommendations ranged from high-level concepts to detailed suggestions across seven areas: (1) education and outreach; (2) usability of the MLC’s systems, including the public musical works database and claiming portal; (3) data quality; (4) matching practices; (5) holding and distributing unclaimed accrued royalties; (6) measuring success; and (7) transparency. One of the report’s most significant recommendations was that the MLC should hold unclaimed royalties for longer than the statutory minimum period, to maximize its matching efforts and the ability of copyright owners to make claims before any market-share-based distributions are made. We recommended that the MLC should wait to make such distributions of unclaimed royalties based on the evaluation of various objective criteria, like match rates and engagement metrics.

Additionally, the Office and the MLC are each involved in substantial education and outreach efforts to help ensure that publishers and songwriters, especially self-published songwriters, are aware of the Music Modernization Act (“MMA”), understand their rights under the new system, know that they can register their works with the MLC and claim royalties, and know that royalties for unclaimed works will be equitably distributed to known copyright owners.

[Here comes the bus.]. The Office is continuing to engage with the MLC and other industry stakeholders, including digital services and songwriters, to monitor the MLC’s progress as it continues to ramp up operations. While the MLC has not indicated that it plans to make a distribution of unclaimed royalties anytime soon, the Office possesses broad regulatory authority to act if necessary to prevent a premature distribution. The statute requires the MLC to give ninety days’ notice before any distribution. We have previously cautioned that making a premature distribution of unclaimed royalties could jeopardize the continuation of the MLC’s designation. 84 Fed. Reg. 32,274, 32,283 (July 8, 2019) (“[I]f the designated entity were to make unreasonable distributions of unclaimed royalties, that could be grounds for concern and may call into question whether the entity has the ‘administrative and technological capabilities to perform the required functions of the [MLC].’”) (quoting 17 U.S.C. § 115(d)(3)(A)(iii)).

One issue that is not discussed in the QFR or anywhere else for that matter is what is happening to the hundreds of millions that the MLC is sitting on. Remember that the MLC is required to pay a government interest rate on black box, and that interest rate has been steadily increasing this year thanks to the Federal Reserve. That interest payment is presumably covered under the MLC’s administrative assessment and government fees charged to music users for the privilege of using the compulsory blanket license.

But wait–there’s more. According to the MLC’s annual report (at p. 4), the MLC invests the black box according to its internal “Investment Policy” established by its board of directors.

Investment Policy: This policy covers the investment of royalty and assessmentfunds, respectively, and sets forth The MLC’s goals and objectives in establishing policies to implement The MLC’s investment strategy. The anti-comingling policy required by 17 U.S.C. § 115(d)(3)(D)(ix)(I)(cc) is contained in The MLC’s Investment Policy. The Investment Policy was approved by the Board in January 2021.

This raises some interesting points. First and foremost, it is unclear where any trading profits reside. Realize that every CMO is confronted with the decision about what to do with the royalty float and black box, but not every CMO decides to invest these funds in the market. If they do invest the funds, it is generally the case that any trading profits, dividends or interest goes to offset the CMO’s administrative costs that otherwise would be deducted from collected royalties.

However, the MLC’s administrative costs are paid by the users of the blanket license (making the United States, I believe, the only country in history or the world that charges for the use of a statutory license). Therefore, the return on the MLC’s investment of the songwriters’ money would not be used for the same purpose as all the world’s CMOs that follow a similar practice. 

Whether the ROI is returned to songwriters or to the users or retained by the MLC is unclear to me from the MLC’s annual report. It is also unclear as to the authority that the MLC’s board (or the Copyright Office for that matter) would have to put the songwriters’ money at risk in the market, what record keeping is made or required of the investments and ROI, or really much of anything at all, aside from the quoted statement above. 

It is also unclear how, if at all, the MLC distinguishes between ROI on royalty or the administrative assessment. It would make sense for trading profits on received but unspent administrative assessment funds to offset current or future assessments, but it’s not clear if that is done.

Assuming there are any. Profits, that is.

I was hoping that this topic would be addressed in the oversight hearing, but maybe next time.

by theinvisiblestagehand

Frozen Mechanicals Crisis: 2nd Comment of @helienne @davidclowery @theblakemorgan Opposing Conflict of Interest in Frozen Mechanicals–‘Let the future have a vote’

SECOND REOPENING PERIOD COMMENTS OF HELIENNE LINDVALL, DAVID LOWERY AND BLAKE MORGAN 

            Helienne Lindvall, David Lowery and Blake Morgan (collectively, the “Writers”) thank the Judges for the opportunity and respectfully submit the following comments responding to the Copyright Royalty Judges’ notice (“Second Notice”) soliciting comments on additional materials (“Reply”) received by the Judges[1] from the National Music Publishers Association, Nashville Songwriters Association International, Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings, Inc. and Warner Music Group Corp. (collectively, the “Majors”)[2] regarding the so-called [frozen] “Subpart B” statutory rates and terms[3] relating to the making and distribution of physical or digital phonorecords of nondramatic musical works in the docket referenced above (“Proceeding”). 

The Writers previously submitted comments[4] (“Prior Comment”) responding to the Judges’ notice[5] (“First Notice”) soliciting comments on the Major’s proposed purported settlement (the “Proposed Settlement”)[6] of the Subpart B rates.  The Writers along with attorney Gwendolyn Seale[7] attempted to submit additional comments in response to the Majors’ filing but were not able to timely file that response.[8]  The Writers appreciate the Judges’ decision to reopen the comment period in order to afford the public, and those that would be bound by the rates and terms set by the Proposed Settlement,[9] an opportunity to comment on those additional materials filed by the Majors and to further participate in the rulemaking.[10]

I.  SUMMARY
            As a general comment on the record to date in Phonorecords IV, the Writers are mystified by the histrionics that have become associated with this Proceeding both on the record and in the press. A voluntary negotiation is just a deal, often made by people who are paid to always be closing. The Writers believe that Congress intended that voluntary negotiation produce a fair result on a reasonable timetable.  

 While not directly at issue in the reopened comment period, what is clearly the case is that the settlement of the Subpart B rates has unnecessarily become a major gating item for the streaming side of this Proceeding, geese and ganders being what they are.  Despite the extensive voluntary negotiation period for the Subpart B rates by the Majors, the Judges—and, frankly, songwriters around the world–are presented instead with a cornucopia of chaos across the board; the cherry on top is the frozen mechanicals crisis.  However, in this season of hope the Writers are confident that the Judges will lead us all out of this daunting situation.

The Writers are not interested in the personalities, the arm-waving or the finger-pointing.  They are interested in the results, particularly because neither they nor anyone they authorized had input into the negotiation that produced either the Proposed Settlement or the impasse.

There is at least one easy way to fix this and recognize the intrinsic value of songs:  Raise the statutory rate proposal for Subpart B configurations in at least some relation to the streaming rate increase.  A song is no less valuable because of the medium in which it is exploited.[11] 

As the Writers will argue, just like the voluntary agreement on Subpart B that led to this impasse was reached by the Majors, those same parties can go back to the drawing board to reach an appropriate conclusion with a higher Subpart B rate.  

Neither the public nor the songwriters are well served (and frankly neither are the Judges) by thrashing about and waiving arms. This may serve well the people who are paid by the hour but it hasn’t served people who are paid by the song.  At all.  “Victory” without winning may pass for success in Washington, but it does not in the writer room or at a songwriter’s kitchen table.

            The Proposed Settlement is a crystallization of everything that is wrong with the licensing and payment practices that have arisen under the compulsory license regime where no is yes, more is less and the Kool-Aid whispers “Drink Me.”  

While the Writers will focus in this comment on the frozen mechanicals issue that has become emblematic of the current crisis, it must be said that the decade-plus MOU [black box] agreements are a backward looking and inequitable insider arrangement that permits a mindset of sloppiness and a “kick the can down the road” mentality that debilitates the entire music publishing business.[12]  It’s no accident that the Mechanical Licensing Collective—run by largely the same cast of characters under a jaw-dropping Congressional governance mandate—has been sitting on $424,000,000 of other peoples’ money for nine months during a pandemic with no visible compliance with another Congressional mandate of paying songwriters correctly in Title I of the Music Modernization Act.[13]  

            The MLC and the sequence of MOUs are both descended from the same ancestors a generation ago.  Each have essentially the same business model and each are somehow inexplicably viewed as a “win” for the songwriters.  The irony of splicing the genetic code of the ancien régime MOU [black box insider settlements] to the future is not lost on anyone.  If the failure to match money and songs in the MOU process is still a problem after fifteen years as well as the much-trumpeted Title I of the Music Modernization Act, it’s not the horse’s fault.  It’s the rider’s.

            It would be a real pity for the CRB to perpetuate this unfairness by adopting the Proposed Settlement.  With respect, it is bad law, bad policy, and a failure to even try to bend the arc of the moral universe.  Conversely, rejecting the Proposed Settlement would provide the kind of steely oversight tragically lacking in the current regime.  Please let the future have a vote, just once.

            The Writers object to the Proposed Settlement for the following reasons and respectfully suggest constructive alternatives.  The gravamen of our objection is that (1) the Subpart B rates have already been frozen since 2006 and extending the freeze another five years is unjust; (2) no evidence has been publicly produced in the Proceeding that justifies or even explains extending the proposed freeze aside from the connection to the memorandum of understanding in the MOU4 late fee waiver (“MOU”), a document that the Majors only recently disclosed in their Reply; (3) very large numbers of songwriters and copyright owners of various domiciles around the world and national origins are unlikely to even know this Proceeding is happening and there still is no evidence that the unrepresented have appointed any of the participants to act on their behalf or were asked to consent to the purported settlement before the fact even if they were members of these organizations aside from the respective board of directors; (4) physical sales are still a vital part of songwriter revenue (which the Writers documented in the Prior Comment[14]); and (5) there are many just alternatives available to the Judges without applying an unjust settlement to the world’s songwriters who are strangers to the Proposed Settlement and in particular the MOU component (as the MOU will likely require membership in the NMPA to benefit consistent with prior MOUs).

[Read the full-length original filing here.]

[1] 86 FR 58626.

            [2] NMPA, NSAI, Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings, Inc. and Warner Music Group Comments in Further Support of the Settlement of Statutory Royalty Rates and Terms for Subpart B Configurations, Determination of Royalty Rates and Terms for Making and Distributing Phonorecords (Phonorecords IV), Copyright Royalty Board (Aug. 10, 2021).

            [3] 37 C.F.R. §385.11(a).

            [4] Comments of Helienne Lindvall, David Lowery and Blake Morgan, Determination of Rates and Terms for Making and Distributing Phonorecords (Phonorecords IV) (July 26, 2021) available at https://app.crb.gov/document/download/25533.

[5] 86 FR 33601.

            [6] Motion To Adopt Settlement of Statutory Royalty Rates and Terms for Subpart B Configurations, Docket No. 21-CRB-0001-PR (2023-2027).

            [7]  Ms. Seale does not otherwise join in this comment.  We understand she is filing a separate comment regarding the additional materials.

            [8] The Writers’ reply was posted on The Trichordist website available at https://thetrichordist.com/2021/08/16/frozenmechanicals-crisis-unfiled-supplemental-comments-of-helienne-lindvall-davidclowery-theblakemorgan-and-sealeinthedeal/.  Parts of that unfiled comment are included in this comment.

[9] See 17 USC 801(b)(7)(a)(i).

                  [10]  As with the Writers prior submission in response to the First Notice, the Writers focus in this comment almost entirely on the Subpart B rates applicable to physical carriers under 37 C.F.R. §385.11(a).  

            [11] The Judges no doubt will be told many stories about how Subpart B configurations are not meaningful sales compared to streaming so rates deserve to be frozen.  This is a novel copyright argument without a statutory basis.  The theory is also not based on accurate facts as the Writers discuss extensively in the Prior Comment at paragraph 5 and will not repeat here.

            [12] There is a growing backlash to decades of delaying definitive action on song metadata and songwriter payments such as Credits Due campaign of the Ivors Academy and Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus.  See generally Chris Cooke, PPL Backs Björn Ulvaeus’s Credits Due Campaign, Complete Music Update (Oct. 4, 2021) available at https://completemusicupdate.com/article/ppl-backs-bjorn-ulvaeuss-credits-due-campaign/

            [13] See, e.g., H. Rep. 115-651 (115th Cong. 2nd Sess. April 25, 2018) at 5; S. Rep. 115-339 (115th Cong. 2nd Sess. Sept. 17, 2018) at 5 (“The Committee welcomes the creation of a new musical works database that is mandated by the legislation….Music metadata has more often been seen as a competitive advantage for the party that controls the database, rather than as a resource for building an industry on.” (emphasis added)).

            [14] See Prior Comment at 16.

by Trichordist Editor

The MLC Announces the Inception to Date Black Box Payments: $424 million

According to an MLC press release, the MLC has $424,384,787 from digital music services:

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) announced today that it has received a total of $424,384,787 in accrued historical unmatched royalties from digital service providers (DSPs), together with corresponding data reports that identify the usage related to these royalties.  

A total of 20 DSPs separately transferred accrued historical unmatched royalties to The MLC as required in order for them to seek the MMA’s limitation on liability for past infringement. In addition to the accrued unmatched royalties transferred to The MLC, the DSPs concerned also delivered more than 1,800 data files, which contain in excess of 1.3 terabytes and nine billion lines of data. 

This is a lot of money, but you do have to ask if this is what they admit to, now much is really there? Time will tell. You also have to ask whether they would have paid the money at all if it weren’t for the lawsuit brought against Spotify and the Harry Fox Agency by Eminem publishers Eight Mile Style and Martin Affiliated. Once the services got it through their heads that moving the goalposts wasn’t going to get them off of the front pages of the class action lawyer magazines (with a map that said “X MARKS THE SPOT”), the money was forthcoming.

Here’s the list of services that the MLC says paid the headline number:

MLC Payments

Note that the top five payments are from Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Google and Pandora. It is simply laughable that of this group, the two biggest offenders are Apple and Spotify for different reasons. Apple tries to position itself as a friend to artists and songwriters and is the worst offender. Spotify has literally no excuse as they have been sued multiple times and as we now see for good reason. Amazon and Google are two of the biggest technology companies in commercial history, but they can’t find songwriters.

The moral of the story is that you can’t find what you don’t look for. And of course the one sided drafting of the Music Modernization Act basically gives the services a pass on whether this payment was even accurate. You have to think that if the accounting was so sloppy that these paragons of technology missed the target by 100s of millions, there very easily could be 100s of millions more that we’ll never get. Do not let anyone tell you that this is some great victory by the lobbyists–this is a great victory by the lobbyists for Big Tech. They are paying us with our own money through a pig in a poke. If our lobbyists are going to celebrate anything, they need to celebrate when every penny is accounted for and paid to the right person. And there should be no cost-benefit analysis because as we were told many times, the services are paying for it. So they should pay for all of it, including the distribution to the long tail. In other words, our lobbyists should celebrate only if the market share distribution is zero. Surely they thought of this.

But now the hot potato is at the MLC which is financed by all these same offenders. We need to ask if the money reported by the MLC is the exact sum that they received from the participating DSPs or if there were any “fees” that disappeared from view before it was reported. We also need to ask if the monies received by the MLC is the exact same dollars that were paid by the DSPs and whether any “fees” disappeared before the money got to the MLC.

But all in all, a potentially good day provided that money immediately begins flowing to songwriters. There’s a long way between here and there, but keeping pressure on will keep attention on that juicy target.

by thetrichordist

Guest Post: Good News for Music Tech Startups: DLC Changes Fee Structure for Using Blanket Compulsory License

by Chris Castle

(This post first appeared on the Music Tech Solutions blog)

Title I of the Music Modernization Act established a blanket mechanical royalty license, the mechanical licensing collective to create the musical works database and collect royalties, the Digital Licensee Coordinator (which represents the music users under the blanket license) and a system where the services pay for the millions evidently required to operate the MLC and create the musical works database (which may happen eventually but which currently is the Harry Fox Agency accessed via API).

Title I also established another first (to my knowledge):  The United States became the first country in the world to charge music users a fee for availing themselves of a compulsory license.  The way that works is that all users of the blanket license have to bear a share of the costs of operating the MLC and eventually establishing the musical works database (and whatever else is in the MLC’s budget like legal fees, executive pension contributions, bonuses, etc.).  This is called the “administrative assessment” and is established by the Copyright Royalty Judges through a hearing that only the DLC and the MLC were (and probably are) allowed to attend, yet sets the rates for music users not present.

The initial administrative assessment is divided into two parts: The startup costs for developing the HFA API and the operating costs of the MLC.  The startup costs for the API, vendor payments, etc., were assessed to be $33,500,000; that’s a pricey API.  The first year MLC operating costs were assessed to be $28,500,000.  Because it’s always groundhog day when it comes to music publishing proceedings before the Copyright Royalty Judges, the method of allocating these costs are a mind-numbing calculation that will require lawyers to interpret.  With all respect, the poor CRJs must wonder how anything ever actually happens in the music business based on the distorted view that parades before them.  You do have to ask yourself is this really the best we can do?  Imagine that the industry elected to solve its startup problems by single combat with one songwriter and one entrepreneur staying in a room until they made a deal.  Do you think that the best they could come up with is the system of compulsory licensing as it exists in the US?  Maybe.  Or maybe they’d come up with something simpler and less costly to administer in the absence of experts , lobbyists and lawyers.

My feeling is that the entire administrative assessment process is fraught with conflicts of interest, a view I made known in an op-ed and to the Senate Judiciary Committee staff at their request when the MMA was being drafted.  The staff actually agreed, but said their hands were tied because of “the parties”–which of course means “the lobbyists” because the MMA looked like what they call a “Two Lexus” lobbying contract.  Not for songwriters, of course.

Yet, the DLC appears to have reconsidered some of this tom foolery and should be praised for doing so.  The good news is that the market’s gravitational pull has caused the allocation of the assessment on startups to come back to earth in a much more realistic methodology.  Markets are funny that way, even markets for compulsory licenses.  While still out of step with the rest of the world, at least the US precedent appears much less likely to have the counterproductive effects that were obvious before MMA was signed into law due to the statute’s anticompetitive lock in.  And the DLC should be commended for having the courage and the energy to make the fairness-making changes.  That’s a wow moment.

Hats off to the DLC for getting out ahead of the issue.  I recommend reading the DLC filing supporting the revisions (technically a joint filing with MLC but it reads like it came from DLC with MLC signing off).  It’s clearly written and I think the narrative will be understandable and informative to a layperson (once you get past the bizarre structure of the entire thing).  The DLC tells us the reasons for revisiting the allocation:

Since the Judges adopted the initial administrative assessment regulations, the Parties [i.e., the DLC and MLC since no one else was allowed to participate even if they had a stake in the outcome] have gained a better understanding of the overall usage of sound recordings within the digital audio service industry, as well as the relative usage of various categories of services. This information has led the Parties to conclude that the allocation methodology could have significant impacts on smaller Licensees, and that the allocation methodology should be modified to better accommodate these Licensees, and that such is reasonable and appropriate. This is particularly the case as these Licensees transition to the new mechanical licensing system set forth in the Music Modernization Act (“MMA”) and navigate new reporting requirements, and further as the country continues to generally struggle through the economic and health effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While the cost, reporting requirements, and impacts of the pandemic are experienced by all Licensees, the Parties believe that it is reasonable and appropriate to modify the administrative assessment to better address the situations of smaller Licensees.

The “old” allocation resulted in this payment structure for services buying into the blanket license (setting aside download stores for the moment):

Old Assessment Alloction

It was that $60,000 plus an indeterminate share of operating costs that was the killer.  The new allocation is more precise applicable to other than download stores:

New Assessment Alloction

This makes a lot more sense and one can believe that some startups actually were asked what they think. Remember, David Lowery sent an open letter to the CRJs in 2019 raising this exact point reacting to the bizarre initial administrative assessment hearings:

The Judges should take into account that no startup has been present or able to negotiate the many burdens placed on them by this settlement. In particular, they have not been able to be heard by the Judges on the scope of these financial burdens that their competitors—some of the richest multinational corporations in history—have unilaterally decided to place on them with no push back.

This isn’t to say that any would be brave enough to come forward and challenge their betters if given a chance. But they should at least be given a chance.

There are some twists and turns to the new rule which was adopted by the CRJs as a final rule on January 8, 2021, and any startup should obviously get smart about the rules. But–these latest amendments have established two really great things: First, the DLC is paying attention. That is very good for the reasons David raises. The other is that the DLC is apparently actually talking to someone other than Google and Spotify and coming up with reasonable compromises. This is very, very good. Let’s hope it continues.

We’ll be watching.

by Trichordist

Results and Recommendations of the Artist Rights Watch MLC Awareness Survey

Guest post by Chris Castle

Our sister site Artist Rights Watch fielded a Mechanical Licensing Collective Awareness Questionnaire during January targeting songwriters attending our MLC webinar.  (MLC Awareness Questionnaire 1/31/21 n=120.)  The purpose of the questionnaire was to give the panelists some idea of the awareness level of attendees about the issues we intended to discussed based on early responses to the survey.  You can read the analysis of the responses here, but I’m going to discuss them briefly.

Of the 120 people who responded, responses suggest that approximately 70% of respondents personally handled the business and administration of their song catalogs, 50% were self-administered, and 50% administered song catalogs of 100 songs or fewer.  In other words, the majority of respondents were exactly the kind of self-administered songwriters or administrators we sought to connect with and who are eligible to stand for the MLC board seats devoted to self-administered songwriters if the right insiders nominate them .  We are still analyzing the geographic data, but about 16% were from California zip codes with the rest distributed across Texas, Georgia and other fly-over states predictably not represented on the MLC’s board of directors.

The basic questions about the MLC awareness we were trying to better understand were whether respondents even knew what we were asking about, and if so, how did they know.  This will help understand the success of the information efforts to date by the MLC, the DLC, and the Copyright Office.  We also wanted to know if respondents felt that they knew enough about the MLC to advocate for themselves with the MLC as an effectiveness metric for other educational efforts to date.

An encouraging 63% of respondents had heard of the MLC, but 22% had not.  Less encouraging was 6.67% who had both heard of the MLC and successfully registered and 4.17% who had heard of it but had not been able to register.

When asked how they had heard of the MLC, respondents were asked to respond to a list of potential sources, including “other”.  The largest source of information was “news media” at 27.35% and the next largest was “other”, which included a variety of sources including The Trichordist, Artist Rights Watch and MTP.  

However, given the other answers, the education efforts of the MLC (including HFA), the DLC and the Copyright Office did not seem to be making much penetration into these respondents, although the Copyright Office led the pack, sometimes by a lot.  This is curious because it’s not really the Copyright Office’s job and they are not being paid millions to do it.

MLC Quesion Source

As a measurement of the cumulative effectiveness of the educational outreach by the MLC, DLC and Copyright Office, we asked whether respondents felt they could advocate for themselves with the MLC.  60.83% answered “no” or that they “could use some help.”  This was surprising, and I would have preferred to see that number down in the single digits.

Of those who tried to register with the MLC, 15.38% of respondents successfully registered, 12.5% were told to use HFA, but 32% were “not sure” what they were told to do by the MLC.  I think that it’s safe to explore whether the data indicate that the educational outreach has resulted in an abysmally low registration rate.

For whatever reason, this language has appeared on the MLC’s website in recent days:

Prior to January 1, 2021, DSPs operating under a compulsory license were required by law to account to rightsholders on a monthly basis, within 20 days after the end of each month. Starting on January 1, 2021, DSPs operating under the new blanket license will have 45 days after the end of each month to send their usage reports and royalty payments to The MLC. The MLC will then take 30 days to perform its matching functions and calculate the royalties due to each of its Members. That means that The MLC will send out royalty payments and statements to Members roughly 75 days after the end of each monthly period. Because the total duration of the new distribution process will be longer than the old process, there will be a two month gap at the beginning of 2021 between the time rightsholders receive their last monthly statements and payments from DSPs under the old process and the time when they receive their first monthly statements and payments from The MLC under the new process. 

12% of respondents said that they were paid monthly and 60% of respondents were paid quarterly or “other” than monthly or quarterly.

We will be studying the responses over the coming weeks, but I had a few thought on the responses and a couple recommendations.  

  1. I’m going to ask if ARW can field the same questionnaire periodically to see how responses vary over time. UPDATE: ARW will be fielding a new survey with a few additional questions, you can participate at this link.
  2. It appears that of all the media the experts are using to get their messaging out, the one making the greatest penetration for mere awareness is news media.  However, respondent’s lack of confidence in their ability to register with the MLC as well as the low level of successful registrations hasn’t yet supported a conclusion that the experts’ well-funded efforts are producing greater MLC registrations or a greater understanding of how to register, or, and most importantly, actual registrations.
  3. There seems to be considerable confusion for whatever reason about someone else doing the registration for songwriters, be it administrator or publisher.  Outside of the survey, we have anecdotal evidence that songwriters are finding that their songs are not registered with the MLC after having been assured they would be by their publishers.  Because of the announced songwriter payment gap that the MLC anticipates in the first few months of its operations, songwriters may only find out they are not registered when their payments stop.

    Recommendation:  One technique I observed with a  SoundExchange information session was that artists were able to bring their laptops to a seminar where they were literally walked through the SoundExchange registration process step by step after the informational Q&A session concluded.  Even during COVID this could be accomplished using screen share.  

    By using this technique, the MLC could make sure that the end result of their webinars, etc., was that songwriters or publishers registered works and learned how to do so for the remainder of their catalog.  Plus they knew who to call if they had any problems or further questions.  This takes time, but the whole process takes time and you’re only fooling yourself if you think otherwise, to be blunt. I would say that it matters less how these people managed to waste two years in which they could have been doing this than it does to fix the problem right here, right now.  Do not let them tell you that the need only arose on the License Availability Date of 1/1/21 because that is just a CYA lie.

    Recommendation:  The experts should make a focus of their messaging a very clear statement that if you don’t register you will not get paid.  That is the harsh reality.  By hiding that ball, they do everyone a disservice.  Maybe an unregistered songwriter will eventually be able to claw their royalty back from the black box at some point in the future, but in the time of COVID, that claw back comes with a mortality rate.

    Recommendation:  No accrued but unpaid royalties for the first two or three years of the MLC’s operations should be able to be placed in the black box.  Not that they wait to pay out black box for 3 years, but they cannot use any of this money for black box–ever.  Like state unclaimed property offices, they hold the money forever.  The reason is that there is a greater than 50% chance that the reason funds are unmatched is because of the MLC’s startup missteps, not anything the songwriter did.  
by thetrichordist