This is quite an extraordinary statement by the two previous Registers of Copyright. The call the dismissal unseemly and the ask the members of The Judiciary Committee to Investigate!
“Two former heads of the U.S. Copyright Office sent the following letter to the chairs of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees in sharp criticism of the abrupt and possibly actionable sacking o…”
Big congratulations to Flo & Eddie (aka The Turtles) and class counsel Henry Gradstein for a great settlement in their indie label class action against SiriusXM for pre-72 sound recordings. The settlement is a guaranteed $25 million payment against a 5.5% license for 10 years which is worth between $45.47 million to $59.2 million assuming Sirius continues to play the remaining class member’s recordings at the same play rate as the past.
via Flo & Eddie Class Settlement with Sirius on Pre-72 Sound Recordings — Artist Rights Watch
David Lowery and Chris Castle discuss firing of the head of US Copyright Office, DOJ appeal of 100% Licensing Ruling and Artist Advocacy
[Editor Charlie sez: big 45.2% increase in the number of people getting royalty payments from SoundExchange!] SoundExchange just paid out more than quarter of a billion dollars to recorded music rights holders – its biggest three-month distribution in two years. According to the US company’s latest data, it delivered $263.5m to labels and artists in […]
With ASCAP and BMI still under unaltered consent decrees and SESAC agreeing to rate-setting arbitration in a 2015 settlement, the Radio Music Licensing Committee (RMLC) is going for the grand slam with an antitrust lawsuit against boutique performance rights organization Global Music Rights.
Facebook is buying back up to $6 billion of its stock from shareholders, the company announced in a SEC filing on Friday–and still no music licenses.
With views in the millions, it’s time for Facebook to answer songwriters’ friend request and properly license their platform. Otherwise, it may find itself de-friended by the music industry.
via @DavidIsraelite: It’s Time for Facebook to Accept Songwriters’ Friend Request — Artist Rights Watch
A provocative question–of course knowing the answer precisely would mean that Amazon actually knew which CDs were counterfeit to begin with. That means we need to guess, but sometimes guesses are more accurate that we may give them credit for. And we guess it’s in the 2 million unit range–and absurdly high number for the smartest guys in the room.
via How many Counterfeit CDs Does Amazon Sell? — Artist Rights Watch
The Obama Department of Justice filed notice on November 11 that it intended to use the peoples money to appeal BMI Rate Court Judge Louis Stanton’s devastating ruling against the DOJ’s bizarre position on “100% licensing”. Professor Steve Winogradsky and I summarized the results of the ruling in this post. Aside from the terrible legal […]
Obama like many political leaders has relied upon songwriters to shape his public persona and image. But Obama has also allowed his antitrust division to relentlessly persecute songwriters in ways that benefit Silicon Valley firms that are among his largest campaign donors.
Politicians, especially democratic politicians have always appealed to songwriters and performers for help campaigning and in shaping their images. But once the election is over we never see anything in return. Not even a “thank you.” But our long running abusive relationship with politicians seems to have hit a new low. It appears the Obama DOJ purposely waited until after all those celebrity/songwriter/performer campaign rallies were finished before they renewed their “100% licensing” legal crusade against songwriter non-profits BMI and ASCAP.
And I do mean “purposely waited.” Let me explain.
In late July the DOJ ordered songwriter organizations to offer “full work licensing” even on works that they didn’t completely control. The DOJ claimed that 70 year old antitrust consent decrees required this of songwriters. However this goes against standard co-writing convention and private contracts that often stipulate each songwriter license his/her share of a work. For 70 yeas the DOJ never once objected to this practice by songwriters. Why now? It was only after the Google backed MIC-Coalition (an astroturf lobbying group that represents… well… Google) wrote and asked DOJ Assistant Attorney General Renata Hesse (herself a former Google lawyer) to require full work licensing of songwriters. Hesse agreed and tried to force the change on songwriters performing rights organization.
BMI a non-profit that licenses and collects performing rights royalties for songwriters asked a federal judge to block the DOJ from enforcing this new rule. On September 16 2016 Judge Stanton blocked the new rule. Blocked is perhaps too soft, maybe better: it was a complete and devastating smackdown for the DOJ. Judge Stanton barely spent half a day on the matter. In no uncertain terms the Judge told the DOJ the consent decrees said nothing about 100% licensing and to knock it off.
Although the DOJ indicated they might appeal, they went quiet. The election heated up. Obama hit the campaign trail for Clinton and other democratic candidates. Performers and songwriters as they usually do, made many appearances on behalf of (mostly) democratic candidates. Wednesday morning we awoke to President-Elect Trump and by Friday the Obama DOJ was back to suing songwriters.
But here’s the kicker: the DOJ filed a one sentence note to the court of appeals, appealing Judge Stanton’s ruling. ONE FUCKING SENTENCE! Are you telling me it took 8 weeks to write a one sentence notice? No, of course not. They could have filed this notice back in September. Songwriters, face it, we got used. We got rope-a-doped. We got played like suckers. Like we always do.
I’d love to see the emails between AG Lynch, Renata Hesse and the other lawyers in the Antitrust Division of the DOJ. I believe this was a pure political calculation with the election in mind.
If you want to FOIA the DOJ Antitrust Division you can do that here:
https://www.justice.gov/oip/department-justice-freedom-information-act-reference-guide
The Trichordist 
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