Mechanical Licensing Collective

Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers To the Right: When Will the MLC Show Us the Money?

If you’ve received one of these emails from the MLC about having to recast their monthly statement inside of a single month, when you’re eying that $500,000,000 of supposedly unmatched money that’s sitting in the MLC, Inc.’s bank account (maybe?), or if you’re trying to figure out when they are launching the vastly overdue claiming portal, you’re probably wondering–who’s in the clown car today? Bozo or Pennywise?

But maybe they’re smarter than they look. Because all they have to do to distribute that $500,000,000 on a market share basis is keep you looking at the bright and shiny object while they run out the clock.

And if you’re waiting for the Copyright Office to save you because they have “oversight”, you’re going to be waiting for a long time. Here’s the reality–nobody is minding the store. There’s a difference between “oversight” and “overwatch.” In Washington, “oversight” means finding someone else to blame and from the very beginning it has been clear who the MLC intends to blame–you. Because you didn’t “play your part” or sufficiently “connect to collect”.

The Copyright Office has done a couple things while under the supervision of the current head lobbyist for Spotify. They’re good at studies, terrible at oversight, so let’s give credit where it’s due. But also realize that’s where it stops because they have about as much moxie as a starfish. (And if you think the NMPA is going to save you, take a look at the frozen mechanicals debacle and ask yourself if a rational person could really take that seriously.)

At the core of the MLC’s business model is the ability to match. Matching is kind of a “See Spot run” building block. If you can’t match, it’s very close to saying you can’t count. Because it depends on what the definition of “match” is.

So what is a match? Or as the Bard might say, how can I screw thee? Let me count the ways. The Copyright Office produced the Unclaimed Royalties Best Practices study partly on this very topic. Notice the difference between “best practices” and “rules.” “Best practices” is not the same as “rule”. If you violate a best practice, nothing happens to you, so therefore perfect for Washington. If you violate a rule, bad things happen to you. The connective tissue is enforcement. If you violate a rule at the Securities and Exchange Commission, you wear stripes. If you violate a rule at the Environmental Protection Agency, you will pay a fine, for sure. If you violate a rule at the MLC? There really aren’t any so it can’t happen. In other words, it’s just like the Harry Fox Agency.

But that’s what we have so let’s look at one passage in particular from the Best Practice Study because that’s the closest we have to a rule book.

The Office recommends that the MLC make all [matching] metrics publicly available, except to the extent it would cause confidential or business sensitive information to be improperly disclosed. [God forbid.] Specifically regarding match rates, the Office acknowledges the MLC’s point that “vendors can easily increase their claimed ‘match percentage’ by simply dropping the confidence level at which they call something a match.” For that reason, the Office recommends that the MLC provide appropriate context for its metrics, including information surrounding how it defines a match, relevant confidence levels, and how confidence levels are tuned. Additionally, so that they are clear and precise, and to avoid possible confusion, the Office recommends that all royalty figures be provided both with and without accrued interest. [How about a best practice of how they are practicing complying with best practices best?
The Office recommends that in addition to providing annual statistics in its annual report, the MLC also have a dedicated public webpage displaying all of these metrics in a clear, well-organized, user-friendly, and accessible manner. The webpage should be interactive and allow users to search, sort, and break down the data so it may be more easily reviewed and analyzed. The webpage should also have an export or download feature, including bulk exporting/downloading, to aid public consumption and dissemination. The Office recommends that the webpage be updated monthly after each batch of new reports of usage arrive and go through initial matching processes. All metrics should be retained and made available online indefinitely (though the MLC could distinguish between current and historic metrics in the future) so long-term trends can be assessed and to ensure the public and the Office have access to them in connection with the review of the MLC’s designation every five years. The MLC should also be very clear about how applicable metrics may change in response to DMP reporting adjustments and the reconciliation of any related royalty underpayments or overpayments permitted by the Office’s regulations. Relatedly, the Office also recommends that the MLC make publicly available relevant metrics about DMP reported usage that the MLC determines is not subject to blanket licenses (e.g., where it is subject to a voluntary license instead, public domain musical works, etc.), such that any related paid royalties have been credited or refunded back to the DMP.

What would also be nice is to tell you how much of your money they are holding and how you get it back. Maybe they could practice the best out of that.

There’s nothing particularly insightful about any of that, right? It’s the kind of thing that any songwriter giving the subject a moment or two of thought could have figured out at any point in the last 100 years. It’s also the kind of thing that you would have expected to have been built into the MLC’s system–which is essentially the HFA system–from the beginning.

It doesn’t matter what they say they aspire to do. Naturally they have to say they aspire to get it 100% correct–because otherwise that raises some interesting questions about intent, right?

Will they ever be called to account for their failures? Doubtful. The only business in the world where you can get the government to let you hold $500,000,000 of other people’s money and then keep it because paying it out was just too hard for you.

Do you think this mess is what Congress had in mind after they were fed a bunch of crap by the know-nothing lobbyists?

So let’s ask again–Bozo or Pennywise?

May 11, 2022May 12, 2022 by Trichordist Editor

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.

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.

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.
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.
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.

January 31, 2021February 3, 2021 by thetrichordist

The DLC Finally Confirms (Sort Of) How Much is in the MMA Black Box–Bigger than a breadbox

By Chris Castle

[This post first appeared on MusicTechPolicy]

We’ve all heard rumors about how much is in the “inception to date” black box at the digital music services. The main reason that nobody knows is another example of the dismal drafting of the Music Modernization Act.

Limitation on Liability

Wouldn’t you think that if the class actions against Spotify gave the insiders the leverage to negotiate the MMA giveaway that they could at least have gotten an immediate accounting from the services for how much of the songwriters’ money they’ve been holding all these years? But no, it’s sleepy time in Washington yet again. From the Land of Frozen Mechanicals they bring you more Brinksmanship 101. The retroactive black box payment is due to be made by the services to the MLC and its data vendor, HFA–remembering that HFA was also the data vendor for at least some of the services that created the black box in the first place.

limitation on liability 2

However, there is some activity at the Copyright Office now about how to get this money paid. It’s at the Copyright Office because while drafting the aircraft carrier revision to the Copyright Act (aka Title I of the Music Modernization Act), the hard parts were never drafted and were left to the Copyright Office to handle through regulations. Musicians–you’ve seen this before. This is the Washington version of “we’ll fix it in the mix.” So you do have feel sympathy for the Copyright Office in the situation when all the smart people leave them twisting in the breeze.

The DLC itself is at the mercy of its members in terms of revealing this number but they claim the following in the Digital Licensee Coordinator Ex Parte Letter (Nov. 17, 2020):

DLC also provided a rough estimate of accrued royalties that are available to be transferred to the MLC, based on a limited survey of a subset of DLC members at a particular point in time, and with the crucial caveat that the precise amounts are in flux as digital music providers continue to engage in robust matching efforts. Specifically, DLC estimated that several hundred million dollars were available to be transferred to the MLC as accrued royalties, even after accounting for the derecognition of accruals based on preexisting agreements containing releases to claims for accrued royalties.
DLC also explained that the accruals that were derecognized because copyright owners were paid and provided releases were a fraction of that amount—on the order of tens of millions of dollars.

So now we know at least that much. We know there are “several hundred million” dollars at issue in the black box and we generally know where the money is. We may know that DLC members hold the money. We also know that this money has not been identified, but we at least know enough to get the nose of the camel in the tent.

November 27, 2020 by thetrichordist

SoundExchange Comment on The MLC’s Public Database

[One of the problems that The MLC will encounter is matching songs to transaction data from the “safe harbor services” using the blanket licenses and enjoying the reach back safe harbor giveaway in the Music Modernization Act. There are different ways to do this, but it appears that The MLC wants to gather sound recording metadata (like the ISRC unique identifiers) and then map the songs to the sound recordings based on sound recording information from the services. This is hardly an authoritative basis to determine sound recordings, but that appears to be what The MLC intends to do. SoundExchange is the authoritative source for this information and they’ve been assembling that data for many, many years. This except from SoundExchange’s comment to the Copyright Office sheds light on the issues. Again, you’ll rarely find any of the issues in these Copyright Office comments discussed in the trade press unless someone like The MLC issues a press release. It’s also worth noting that The MLC has merely stated that The MLC “agrees that the data in the public MLC musical
works database is not owned by the MLC or its vendor.” First, “data” is not the same as a “database”. We want to find out if there is any difference between disclaiming ownership of individual data and claiming ownership of the database as a whole. But second, there’s no proof yet that The MLC’s current “data quality initiative” does not simply update the database of The MLC’s vendor, HFA.]

Read the entire SoundExchange comment here.

SoundExchange appreciates the inclusion in Section 210.31(h) of the Office’s proposed regulations the requirement that MLC Database include a “conspicuous” disclaimer that states that the database is not an authoritative source for sound recording information. It appears that the
MLC has decided to populate the MLC Database with sound recording identifying information sourced from usage data provided by digital music providers (rather than authoritative sources such as rights owners). SoundExchange believes this decision will result in the MLC Database being chock-full of redundant records variously misidentifying a large number of sound recordings.

Nonetheless, SoundExchange also recognizes that the MLC needs to launch its business on a tight timetable, and that the Office has sought to mitigate the issue through other provisions such as the requirement to provide data provenance. However, the MLC’s decision makes it critically important the MLC’s disclaimer concerning sound recording information be clear and prominent, and perhaps linked to a more detailed explanation of the issue, because this design decision carries a significant risk of confusing the public, which needs to understand what the MLC Database is and what it is not….

[I]t is critical that the MLC Database be easily accessible to all other
industry participants, so others can build on the MLC Database to create value-added resources for the industry. For example, while the MLC’s reluctance to include and organize its data around authoritative sound recording information may make sense given practical constraints, it represents a missed opportunity to develop a resource with authoritative linkages between sound recordings and musical works that would be of significantly greater value for participants in the ecosystem. Fortunately, the statutory requirement that the MLC make its data available to others provides an opportunity for third parties to fill that void. This kind of function depends on API access to the MLC Database.

October 28, 2020 by Trichordist Editor

Songwriters Guild and Society of Composers & Lyricists Copyright Office Comments on Database Ownership and Songwriter Credit in Public Database

[The Songwriters Guild of America and the Society of Composers & Lyricists filed a joint comment with the Copyright Office on proposed rules implementing the public database that The MLC, Inc. is charged with stewarding. They raise a host of issues, but also focus on the ownership issue raised by the Alliance of Recorded Music and the songwriter credit issue raised by Kerry Muzzey.]

Ownership of the Musical Works Database

As to the issue of “ownership” of the Musical Works Database, SGA and SCL were gratified by the USCO’s clear statement quoting the MMA that:
[w]hile the mechanical licensing collective must ‘establish and maintain a database containing information relating to musical works,’ 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. Under the statute, if the Copyright Office designates a new entity to be the mechanical licensing collective, the Office must ‘adopt regulations to govern the transfer of licenses, funds, records, data, and administrative responsibilities from the existing mechanical licensing collective to the public, either for free or at marginal cost, pursuant to the MMA.’

Nevertheless, we feel compelled to repeat once again the admonitions voiced by attorney Christian Castle in his recent submission to the USCO concerning practical issues, problems and anomalies that have arisen even prior to the commencement date of MLC public operations concerning the construction of the Musical Works Database:

I believe that The MLC is encouraging songwriters to correct their song data in the HFA database and that no data from HFA has been transferred to The MLC as yet, and may never be. If The MLC is having data corrected and filled out in the HFA database, then the rules applicable to vendor access to the database may not apply because the Congress’s musical works database is not actually being created at The MLC, it’s being created at HFA. Time will tell if I am correct about this, but it does seem that if I am correct, then The MLC and HFA are working together to exploit an imagined loophole in Title I that violates Congressional intent and certainly the spirit of MMA. Respectfully, the Office should find out what is going on.3

SGA and SCL believe that these are important questions of fact that require answers to ensure that data ownership issues are as clearly defined as possible in advance of any conflicts that may arise. Clarifying that (i) all data and corrections made through HFA will be mirrored in the Musical Works Database in real time, and (ii) that being compelled to provide data to HFA under color of authority from Title I does not constitute a license to HFA for any other purpose, will be important steps forward.

As we have also previously stated, the contractual role and authority of HFA (or any other vendor) should be subject to transparent scrutiny by all interested parties, includingthe music creators whose works are the subject of all information that resides in the database. That includes examination of the contractual rights of the vendor in regard to the data flowing through its own systems and/or those of the MLC, the ancillary vendor use rights (if any) of such data during both the pendency and post-expiration/termination periods of such contract(s), and the clarity of rights ownership of data by the MLC and successor iterations of the MLC (including as regards the Musical Works Database). We respectfully call on the USCO to address more robustly these important issues of transparency and data ownership, and ignore unsupported assertions that transparency and scrutiny of vendor relationships will invite inefficiencies as opposed to clarity and competition.

Songwriter and Composer Names in the Public Musical Works Database

As the USCO is aware and has recognized, SGA and SCL have been consistently outspoken concerning the fact that out of all pertinent identifiers for musical compositions, the names of the music creators of a work are among the only constant and unique data points. In all but the rarest of circumstances, such information is never subject to change, and therefore one of the most important and reliable elements necessary for accurate identification and matching of works.

Moreover, the extension of proper credit to human creators as part of this crucially important Musical Works Database –rather than simply limiting identifiers to the names of corporate assignees of rights which are frequently subject to change and termination– is both appropriate and essential to the fulfillment of the ideals and underpinnings of the MMA set forth in Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution. As that section makes clear, copyright protections are first and foremost meant to serve the interests of the creators and the public, not the corporate entities that serve in an instrumental but secondary role as rights administrators.

We have therefore remained completely at a loss to understand why this crucial category of information was omitted from the MMA as a specifically required identifier (and why the music publishing community for some reason failed to support our efforts to correct that oversight), and are especially thankful that the USCO has put forth a proposed rule
that requires the MLC to include songwriter and composer information in the database. SGA and SCL continue to remain disquieted, however, with the additional qualifier added by the USCO concerning the standard to be applied by the MLC in seeking music creator data: “to the extent reasonably available to the collective.” Such a limited standard serves to diminish the requisite and explicit value of songwriter/composer identifying information.

We respectfully believe that music creator information should be more clearly defined as a mandatory data point required to be pursued for inclusion in the database by the MLC with vigor, and suggest once again that the rulemaking more specifically reflect the imperative nature of this duty. A more appropriate standard would be, in our view: “to the extent available to the collective through its best efforts to secure such data.” The avoidance of creating loopholes that may permit music publishers to omit music creator information from the data they voluntarily provide to the MLC is essential, and the independent community of songwriters and composers continues to seek the assistance of the USCO in this regard.

In respect to the foregoing, we desire to make clear that SGA and SCL also continue to support the rights of those music creators who may wish not to be publicly associated with certain musical works. That is and must continue to be right of any songwriter or composer. We therefore support the proposed rule put forth by the USCO that grants the MLC discretion to allow music creators the option of having songwriter/composer information listed anonymously or pseudonymously. We would, however, prefer that such a regulation be extended into a mandatory direction to the MLC to accept such direction from a music creator.

Read the whole comment here.

October 21, 2020October 21, 2020 by thetrichordist

Copyright Office Comments by Composer @KerryMuzzey: Include Songwriter Credits in MLC Database

[Kerry Muzzey is an independent classical and film composer and artist rights advocate. In his comment to the Copyright Office on the MLC regulations he asks why songwriter names are not required to be included in the public database currently being stewarded by The MLC, Inc. Including songwriter names in the database seems like a fundamental building block of identifying a song–assuming that’s what you want to do. It would be like SoundExchange reporting not including an artist name in the transaction data. It makes no sense. Yet, it’s an issue as we will see.]

My name is Kerry Muzzey. I am an independent classical and film composer, and am self-published. It is crucial that the MLC database be searchable and completely public-facing, not only by song title but by writer’s name and publishing entity name or by ISWC or BMI/ASCAP IPI/CAE. Independent artists and music publishers must have the ability to search the “black box” of royalty collection, not only for unpaid royalties, but for accrued royalties that appear under a misspelling of an individual’s name, publishing entity, or in the event that a similar song title has resulted in the misattribution of the writer/publisher credit to another writer/publisher or artist. This transparency is essential not only for accurate accounting of royalties for an individual, but also for any works that are co-written, have multiple publishers, and/or whose performance rights are represented by multiple PROs. Any composer, songwriter or music publisher should have the ability to “disambiguate” their works from any other similar- or matching-title works or similar or identical writer names, by a simple error submission/correction process (after completing any necessary verification of identity).

Read the entire comment here.

October 21, 2020October 21, 2020 by thetrichordist

#ShowUsTheMoney: Guest Post: @CopyrightOffice Regulates the @MLC_US: Selected Public Comments on MLC Transparency: Chris Castle

[This is an except from Chris Castle‘s June 7 comment to the Copyright Office regarding the transparency of The MLC. You can read the entire comment here. Although The MLC has launched its “Data Quality Initiative” to great fanfare, that DQI process merely confirms how bad the HFA database is since there still is no MLC database as required by law. Since there’s no indication of when The MLC is going to launch and there is a strong indication that nobody in power is doing anything about it (looking at you, Copyright Office), this is a particularly timely excerpt. Remember you heard it here first if your mechanical royalty statements drop to zero once The MLC takes over on January 1. That is 113 days from today and we have yet to seen a thing from The MLC and we have no promise of when we will see anything. Given that there has been zero investigative journalism on this topic from industry outlets aside from “how does The MLC withstand its own awesomeness” the comments that we are serializing are about all you’re going to get in the way of transparency.]

Quality Control of The MLC’s Operations and Platforms

There is an immediate need for The MLC to demonstrate that its systems actually work. That need will be ongoing, so it would be well for the Office to promulgate regulations requiring a periodic public demonstration of the operability of The MLCs systems, a frequent public disclosure of bugs and bug fixes, and a frequent public disclosure of any missed payments or other glitches. These matters are appropriate for the transparency of The MLC because if either The MLC or another MLC are not required to disclose these items, no one may ever know there was a problem (but see the discussion of whistleblowers below).

In considering the timing, I would caution the Office against thinking in years rather than weeks. There is a tendency to think about these things in annual or more time periods. This will prove to be a mistake given the scale and volume of transactions. Would you tell Visa it only need to confirm the integrity of its fraud detection systems once every three years? Or should it be more frequently? Financial services is a good corollary for streaming mechanicals, with the exception that the royalty payable for each stream starts several decimal places to the right unlike credit card transactions.

There is an immediate need for this transparency. Recall that MLC executive Richard Thompson said at the Copyright Office panel on unclaimed royalties last December, “[A] lot of the time since July has been spent working very closely with the staff at HFA and ConsenSys, really starting to nail down how all of this is going to work at the, you know, lowest operational level, all of the things that we need to work out.” (Referencing the July 8, 2019 designation of The MLC as the MLC.) [1]

Of course, The MLC didn’t announce the selection of HFA and ConsenSys until November 26, 2019[2] and was evidently still interviewing vendors up to that date. Even so, I’m sure The MLC has been hard at work on developing their platform.

Mr. Thompson also stated at the December 2019 panel:

So our current timeline has the first version of the portal going live late Q2, early Q3, of next year [i.e., 2020]. I emphasize again that is the first version. That will not be functionally complete. It will have the, you know, the first set of functionality that we want to make available to the rightsholder community. So in particular, sort of, being able to look at your catalog, manage your catalog.[3]

Late Q2 to early Q3 is now. [As of this post, it is the end of Q3 and we still have nothing but Mr. Thompson still has a job.] To my knowledge, The MLC has made nothing available for songwriters to know what is going on at The MLC or how to start registering works.

Mr. Thompson also stated:

“You know, the first version of the portal doesn’t have statementing on it, because we won’t need statementing until 2021, you know, the first quarter of 2021.”[4]

I would respectfully ask the Office to determine what happens if The MLC is not able to render statements on time. Presumably the income from streaming mechanicals that had been paid by the services directly to songwriters or music publishers would be transferred over to The MLC as of the License Availability Date (currently January 1, 2021). If that transfer occurs and The MLC is not then ready for “statementing” (or, presumably, its corollary, “paymenting”) for the billions if not trillions of streaming transactions for all the world’s music in less than a year’s time from today, then streaming mechanical royalties could drop to zero until The MLC could handle both statementing and paymenting.[5]

While Mr. Thompson seems to be focused on the Q1 2021 distribution date for royalties payable in the normal course, the other significant statementing and paymenting date is July 1, 2021 when the first unmatched distribution is to be paid under Title I. There are also the obvious and expressly stated “public notice of unclaimed royalties” reporting requirements for The MLC’s public facing website listing all unmatched songs (or shares of songs) and publicity efforts for the unmatched.[6] This provision, too, is glitchy, but presumably will come into effect soon. I realize there may be some side deals cut regarding extending that statutory payment date, but it would at least be a confidence building exercise to know that The MLC could make the unmatched payment as of the statutory date if called upon to do so.

Songwriters have very little visibility into The MLC’s operations except what came out at the Copyright Office panels, for which I am grateful, and also various interviews. There is little substantive information in the press, and even less on The MLC’s website. Therefore, it would be very helpful if the Office could require The MLC to demonstrate to the public how its platform is to function. Such a demonstration might bring helpful suggestions from their peers or the ex-US CMOs that have been operating for decades.

It would also be helpful if the Office promulgated a bright line regulation that told songwriters around the world if the July 1, 2021 goal posts have moved and if so where they have been moved to. I must say I have somewhat lost the page on this, given former Register Temple’s last testimony to the House Judiciary Committee about who has agreed what on delaying distribution. This rulemaking would be a great opportunity to tell the world if and how the insiders have decided to change the law.

As the House Judiciary Committee stated:

Testimony provided by Jim Griffin at the June 10, 2014 Committee hearing highlighted the need for more robust metadata to accompany the payment and distribution of music royalties….In an era in which Americans can buy millions of products via an app on their phone based upon the UPC code on the product, the failure of the music industry to develop and maintain a master database has led to significant litigation and underpaid royalties for decades. The Committee believes that this must end so that all artists are paid for their creations and that so-called ‘‘black box’’ revenue is not a drain on the success of the entire industry.[7]

Having accomplished their goal through compulsory legislation, we are all watching the database cadre get to work and looking forward to learning how it is done from their teaching.

Alternatively, as is widely suspected among some songwriters I have spoken to, The MLC might rely on HFA’s statementing and paymenting functionality to limp along by sending necessary but not sufficient statements to HFA publishers or publishers that HFA can match. This would be, essentially, the same process that got a couple of HFA’s licensing clients sued repeatedly, and ironically led to the Title I safe harbor in the first place.

Absent proper transparency in the runup to the License Availability Date, any sudden drop in revenue would catch songwriters by surprise. In the time of the pandemic, such a sudden contraction of income could be even more devastating than usual.[8]

Transparency would help shine sunlight on that problem. While The MLC may give interviews and appear on panels describing their activities, we should remember the words of the great Bruin John Wooden who cautioned that we should not mistake activity for achievement. If you practice free throws by yourself all weekend, it doesn’t mean you’ll be a better player with the team at Monday practice—or that the team is any more likely to win when it is game time at Pauley on Saturday.

[1] Transcript, United States Copyright Office Unclaimed Royalties Study Kickoff Symposium (Dec. 6, 2019) at 28 ln 15 hereafter “Kickoff Transcript”.

[2] Tatania Cirisano, Mechanical Licensing Collective Selects Leadership, Partners for Copyright Database, Billboard (November 26, 2019).

[3] Kickoff Transcript at 40 ln 2.

[4] Kickoff Transcript at 40-41.

[5] It is well to note that such a contraction probably would not affect direct licenses or HFA’s modified compulsory licenses.

[6] 17 U.S.C. § 115 (d)(3)(J)(iii).

[7] House Report at 8.

[8] Songwriters are already expecting lower royalties in January 2021 according to BMI’s President and CEO Mike O’Neil: “[We] anticipate an impact in January 2021, when today’s performances and corresponding licensing dollars (2nd quarter 2020) will be reflected in your royalty distributions. While you may see a lower distribution that quarter than you might typically receive under ordinary circumstances, given BMI’s business model, we have the time and ability to plan for this outcome.” A Message from Mike O’Neil, BMI.com (April 7, 2020) available at https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/a-message-from-bmi-president-ceo-mike-oneill-regarding-royalty-payments

September 10, 2020September 10, 2020 by thetrichordist

Guest Post: MLC Metadata Showdown: What’s in a Name? Your money.

Guest post by Chris Castle

There is an unsurprising discussion going on about song titles in the metadata deliberations regarding the regulations mandating the conduct of the Mechanical Licensing Collective quango. The least surprising part of the discussion is that the services change song titles as it suits them.

This explains why you can get your song metadata all nice and pristine and yet your payments are still screwed up because somehow the titles got changed. It’s not a surprise–they’ve been doing it for years. Unless the services are prohibited from continuing this boneheaded..there I said it..practice, their supposed great yearning for the database in the sky will come a cropper.

The MLC recently raised this issue with the Copyright Office:

The DMPs do not have the same method for altering metadata, and their alterations significantly increase the difficulty of matching. There was a discussion of the DLC’s example of changing the sound recording licensor’s metadata for the “Radio Edit” version of the song “Hello,” so that the song title becomes “Hello (Radio Edit).” It was noted that the MLC’s musical works database will have the musical work title “Hello.” Whereas the unaltered sound recording licensor’s 5-character title “Hello” will be a direct match to the MLC’s musical works database title, the 18-character “Hello (Radio Edit)” is much less of a match in the eyes of an automated string comparison algorithm. Similarly, the MLC does not see merit in the DLC’s argument that each DMP should be allowed to alter metadata such as to remove characters that they deem “illegal” (and there is no standard or consensus on what is an illegal character) as this will only hamper matching efforts.

Let’s acknowledge that there’s nothing new here–this problem has been around for years and was allowed to fester into a business practice. I first wrote about it in the context of the “address unknown” debacle where all concerned allowed services to change song titles and then claim they couldn’t find a copyright registration for the title they changed. Sound Kafka-esque? Mais certainement.

Here’s an example from the address unknown filings that started in 2016. Google filed an address unknown for “Fragile’ by Sting. Bizarre, you say? Yes, of course. But here it is:

Sting Fragile Live

Notice that Google affirmed that Google was not able to find “Fragile” written by Sting in the public records of the Copyright Office. (Leave aside the absurdity that “Google can’t find [X]”.)

And yet, guess what I found in the public records of the Copyright Office after about a 20 second search:

Sting Fragile

Dang.

What do you know, “Fragile” written by Sing is in the public records of the Copyright Office. But of course Google only affirmed they couldn’t find “Fragile (Live)” which at best is the title of the recording, not the song. But it’s the song title Google chose to look for, not the actual title of the song–and the compulsory mechanical license available under the address unknown theory is for the song not the sound recording. So wouldn’t you think that the party relying on that compulsory license should have to search for the correct work? Or else…what? Maybe for starters they don’t get to rely on the address unknown because they had the address available to them and chose not to look. And you know what they say–you can’t find what you don’t look for.

Google, Spotify and other services (but not Apple) got away with this loophole of a loophole because they were allowed to. And this isn’t the only one, by the way. There are likely hundreds of thousands of songs that the services claimed they couldn’t find in the Copyright Office records because the service changed the name of the song and then looked for the name they made up. Some might call this fraud (or a violation of 18 USC Sec. 1001, making false statements to a Congressional agency). (I wrote a pretty extensive article on this in 2017 for the ABA Entertainment & Sports Lawyer. I wish it were old news.) So why were the services allowed to get away with this? Don’t let the revolving door hit you on the way out. (And speaking of revolving doors, see Is it Time for the Inspector General to Review the Copyright Office’s Administration of Address Unknown NOIs?)

Now after all the hoorah of the Music Modernization Act Title I (the MLC part) the services are still trying to get away with this hogwash. And who can blame them? They were allowed to get away with it before so why not keep doing the fraud? Of all the predictable insults, this one is probably the most predictable because the services were allowed to get away with it in the millions of “address unknown” songs at a time when serious and sustained opposition might have stopped it. Some things are worth suing over more than others.

Should they keep getting away with it? It will likely just make the black box bigger. Parce que l’enfer, c’est les autres.

March 4, 2020March 4, 2020 by thetrichordist

@musictechsolve: Defiance or Collaboration? The Role of the Presidential Signing Statement in MLC Board Appointments

[Jem Aswad reports in Variety that Concord Music Publishing and Pulse Music Group have announced a joint venture with Concord acquiring a majority stake in Pulse. Both Concord and Pulse have board seats on the Mechanical Licensing Collective. This presumably means there will be an opening on the MLC board that will have to be filled. There is a question as to whether the Librarian of Congress has to approve a new board member. Chris Castle discusses this issue in this post from last year on MusicTech.Solutions.]

Even though they have a long history, Presidential Signing Statements are not exactly front and center in every civics class or constitutional public law class in America. You may be hearing about them for the first time now. But that doesn’t mean they have not been an important part of Constitutional law-making and jurisprudence.

Presidential Signing Statements were first used by President James Monroe in 1822 in the form of a “special message” to the Senate. Presidents Andrew Jackson, John Tyler and Ulysses Grant also issued signing statements, but they were used infrequently until the 20th Century. Then their use picked up quite a bit starting with President Theodore Roosevelt and continuing to the present day. So the use of Signing Statements is quite bipartisan. While Signing Statements may not themselves have any actionable legal effect, they should not be ignored, either.

The MMA Presidential Signing Statement

Not surprisingly, there is a Presidential Signing Statement accompanying the Music Modernization Act (“MMA”) specifically relating to Title I and at that specifically relating to the MLC board appointments. The relevant language is:

One provision, section 102, authorizes the board of directors of the designated mechanical licensing collective to adopt bylaws for the selection of new directors subsequent to the initial designation of the collective and its directors by the Register of Copyrights and with the approval of the Librarian of Congress (Librarian). Because the directors are inferior officers under the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, the Librarian must approve each subsequent selection of a new director. I expect that the Register of Copyrights will work with the collective, once it has been designated, to ensure that the Librarian retains the ultimate authority, as required by the Constitution, to appoint and remove all directors.

Let’s explore why we should care about this guidance.

According to Digital Music News, there have been changes at the Mechanical Licensing Collective, Inc. (“MLCI”) the private non-profit permitted under Title I of the MMA [in addition to the potential opening due to the Concord/Pulse consolidation]:

[I]t appears that two separate MLC board members are jumping ship. The details are just emerging and remain unconfirmed, though it appears that two members — one representing indie songwriters and the other on the publishing side — are out of the organization.

Because the board composition of MLCI is preemptively set by the U.S. Copyright Act along with many other aspects of MLCI’s operating mandate, the question of replacing board members may be arising sooner than anyone expected. As MLCI is a creature of statute, it should not be controversial that law-makers play an ongoing role in its governance.

The Copyright Office Weighs In

The Copyright Office addressed board appointments for MLCI in its first request for information for the designation of the Mechanical Licensing Collective (83 CFR 65747, 65750 (December 21, 2018) available at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-12-21/pdf/2018-27743.pdf):

The MLC board is authorized to adopt bylaws for the selection of new directors subsequent to the initial designation of the MLC. [If these bylaws have been adopted, we haven’t seen any announcements and as far as we know, they have not been posted. If you know otherwise, please let us know. The MLC website appears to be down. UPDATE: as of 1/13/20 the mechanicallicensingcollective.org now resolves to songconnect.org]

MCLI Down

The Presidential Signing Statement accompanying enactment of the MMA states that directors of the MLC are inferior officers under the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, and that the Librarian of Congress must approve each subsequent selection of a new director. It also suggests that the Register work with the MLC, once designated, to address issues related to board succession.

When you consider that MLCI is, for all practical purposes, a kind of hybrid quasi-governmental organization (or what the Brits might call a “quango”), the stated position of the President, the Librarian of Congress and the Copyright Office should not be surprising.

Why the Controversy?

As the Songwriters Guild of America notes in comments to the Copyright Office in part relating to the Presidential Signing Statement (my emphasis):

Further, it seems of particular importance that the Executive Branch also regards the careful, post-designation oversight of the Mechanical Collective board and committee members by the Librarian of Congress and the Register as a crucial prerequisite to ensuring that conflicts of interest and bias among such members not poison the ability of the Collective to fulfill its statutory obligations for fairness, transparency and accountability.

The Presidential Signing Statement, in fact, asserts unequivocally that “I expect that the Register of Copyrights will work with the collective, once it has been designated, to ensure that the Librarian retains the ultimate authority, as required by the Constitution, to appoint and remove all directors.”

SGA regards it as a significant red flag that the NMPA-MLC submission to the Copyright Office devotes the equivalent of ten full pages of text principally in attempting to refute this governmental oversight authority, and regards the expression of such a position by NMPA/MLC as arguably indicative of an organization more inclined towards opaque, insider management control than one devoted to fairness, transparency and accountability.

So the Presidential Signing Statement to the MMA is obviously of great import given the amount of ink that has been spilled on the subject. Let’s spill some more.

How might this oversight be given effect and will it be in the public record or an informal process behind closed doors? Presumably it should be done in the normal course by a cooperative and voluntary collaboration between the MLC and ultimately the Librarian. Minutes of such collaboration could easily be placed in the Federal Register or some other public record on the Copyright Office website. Failing that collaboration, it could be done by either the Department of Justice (unlikely) or by individuals (more likely) asking an Article III court to rule on the issue.

Of course, the issue should not delay the Copyright Royalty Judges from proceeding with their assessment determination to fund the MLC pursuant to the controversial voluntary settlement or otherwise [which was released after this original post]. One could imagine an oversight role for the CRJs given that Congress charged them with watching the purse strings and the quantitative implies the qualitative. The CRJs have until until July 2020 to rule on the initial administrative assessment and appeal seems less likely today given the voluntary settlement and the elimination of any potential objectors.

Since the Title I proponents drafted the bill to require a certain number of board seats to be filled by certain categories of persons approved by Congress in a Madisonian balance of power, the Presidential Signing Statement seems well grounded and furthers the Congressional mandate.

Yet there is this conflict over the Presidential Signing Statement. What are the implications?

A Page of History is Worth A Volume of Logic

The President’s relationship to legislation is binary—sign it or veto it. Presidential Signing Statements are historically used as an alternative to the exercise of the President’s veto power and there’s the rub.

Signing Statements effectively give the President the last word on legislation as the President signs a bill into law. Two competing policies are at work in Presidential Signing Statements—the veto power (set forth in the presentment clause, Article I, Sec. 7, clause 2), and the separation of powers.

Unlike some governors, the President does not enjoy the “line item veto” which permits an executive to blue pencil the bits she doesn’t like in legislation presented for signature. (But they tried–Line Item Veto Act ruled unconstitutional violation of presentment clause in Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1998).) The President can’t rewrite the laws passed by Congress, but must veto the bill altogether. Attempting to both reject a provision of a new law as unconstitutional, announce the President’s intention not to enforce that provision AND sign the bill without vetoing it is where presidents typically run into trouble.

Broadly speaking, Presidential Signing Statements can either be a President’s controversial objection to a bill or prospective interpretive guidance. Signing Statements that create controversy are usually a refusal by the President to enforce the law the President just signed because the President doesn’t like it but doesn’t want to veto it. Or to declare that the President thinks the law is unconstitutional and will not enforce it for that reason—but signed it anyway.

The President can also use the Signing Statement to define or interpret a key term in legislation in a particular way that benefits the President’s policy goals or political allies. President Truman, for example, interpreted a statutory definition in a way that benefited organized labor which was later enforced by courts in line with the Signing Statement. President Carter used funds for the benefit of Vietnam resisters in defiance of Congress, but courts later upheld the practice—in cases defended by the Carter Justice Department. The practice of using Presidential Signing Statements is now routine and has been criticized to no avail for every administration in the 21st Century including Bush II, Obama and now Trump.

Since the 1980s, it has become common for Presidents to issue dozens if not hundreds of Presidential Signing Statements during their Administration. So it should come as no surprise if the Department of Justice drafted up the statement for the MMA prior to it being presented to the President to be signed into law. (See the American Presidency Project archives https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/presidential-documents-archive-guidebook/presidential-signing-statements-hoover-1929-obama)

Defiance or Collaboration?

What does this mean for the MMA? The President certainly did not call out the statutorily required board membership of the MLC as an unconstitutional overreach that he would not enforce. To the contrary, the MMA Signing Statement expresses the President’s desire that the legislation comply with the requirements of the Constitution.

Moreover, the MMA Presidential Signing Statement is not a declaration about what the President will or won’t enforce but rather interprets a particular section of a long and winding piece of legislation. (Title I principally amended Section 115 of the Copyright Act—now longer than the entire 1909 Copyright Act.) This kind of interpretation seems to be consistent with the practices of prior Presidents of both parties, not an end-run around either the veto power or separation of powers.

Failing to acknowledge the admonition of the signing statement would seem an unnecessary collision both with long-standing jurisprudence and with a sensible recommendation from the President of how the Librarian, the Copyright Office and the Justice Department expect to approach the issue in collaboration with the MLCI. That’s possibly why the Copyright Office restated the Signing Statement in the RFP.

Title I of the MMA is a highly technical amendment to a highly technical statute. A little interpretive guidance is probably a good thing. Collaboration certainly makes more sense than defiance.

January 10, 2020January 13, 2020 by thetrichordist

CISAC and BIEM Suggestions to US Copyright Office on MLC Oversight Regulations

We often overlook the international dimension to the Mechanical Licensing Collective created by Congress in the Music Modernization Act. We’re not the only ones.

One of the most insightful comments in the Copyright Office’s public request for suggestions for regulations to govern the MLC came from CISAC and BIEM.

CISAC stands for Confédération Internationale des Sociétés d’Auteurs et Compositeurs. Founded in 1928, CISAC has been working on the data exchanges and standard identifiers for songs and other non-recorded works since 1994. CISAC created the much discussed abd widely adopted International Standard Work Code (“ISWC”) for songs.

BIEM stands for Bureau International des Sociétés Gérant les Droits d’Enregistrement et de Reproduction Mécanique. Founded in 1929, BIEM represents mechanical collecting societies in some 58 countries.

You may not recognize those acronyms, so here is how the two organizations describe themselves in their comment:

The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), and the International Organisation representing Mechanical Rights Societies (BIEM) are international organisations representing Collective Management Organisations (“CMOs”) worldwide1. CISAC and BIEM members are entrusted with the management of creators’ rights and, as such, have a direct interest in the regulations governing the new blanket licensing system for digital uses as well as the activities of the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC).

Another way to say it is that the MLC was to a large extent modeled on these mechanical rights societies with some important differences, starting with governance. The president of CISAC is Jean-Michel Jarre, the composer. That’s right, a composer is the president. Just sayin’. You may remember Jean-Michel from the #irespectmusic campaign when he was all-in early:

jean michael jarre IRM 1 — Photo by Helienne Lindvall

Here’s an excerpt from the CISAC/BIEM filing that we though was important, but you should take a few minutes and read the entire thing. It’s not very long and it includes vitally important concepts that were never mentioned in Title I of the Music Modernization Act. The comment is spelled out very politely from people who actually know what they’re doing. Let’s just say that independent songwriters are not the only ones who may end up in the dreaded black box.

Remember that MLC is accountable (no pun intended) for identifying and paying potentially on all songs ever written or that may ever be written that are exploited in the US under the new blanket compulsory license in Title I of MMA. This doesn’t mean that all songs will be exploited all the time, but it does mean that MLC has chosen to be responsible for identifying every song and paying royalties to every songwriter as and when exploited–so to speak. All with the authorization of the U.S. Congress. Starting next January.

Good times.

Comments on Section B: Data Collection and Delivery Efforts

The correct identification of copyright owners shall be a key objective of the MLC. Regulations shall ensure the appropriate onward distribution of royalties to copyright owners, whether national or foreign, and therefore that non-US [Collective Management Organizations (“CMOs”)] are entitled to make registrations and thus, claim royalties with the MLC.

 Support the Non-Discriminatory Treatment of Foreign Rightholders

In compliance with article 5.1 of the Berne Convention guaranteeing non-discriminatory treatment between national and non-national creators, the Office should promulgate regulations that ensure rightholders of “US works”
and “non-US works” enjoy the same rights and are equally treated when their works are exploited in the US territory.

 Provide adequate means for CMOs to submit rightsholder information
Outside the US and in particular in Europe, it is common practice for creators to entrust the administration of both performing and mechanical rights to CMOs. As the history of mechanical rights collective management in Europe shows, CMOs are indispensable in the process of establishing the correct ownership of musical works (and shares of such works) on behalf of individual right holders. Oftentimes non-US CMOs are also responsible for the registration of works information licensed in the U.S. that are only sub-published, or not published at all, in the U.S. In this regard, it is essential that non-US CMOs are also entitled to make registrations and, thus, claim royalties with the MLC. Importantly, non-US CMOs (in particular BIEM Members) are normally able to contribute data in relation to work identification and to the registration of work information in the MLC’s Database with a high degree of reliability; in many cases their contributions would be necessary to supplement data submitted by DMPs.

Therefore, the role of non-US CMOs in the identification of works should be expressly foreseen by the regulations. Likewise, the role of CMOs should also be expressly foreseen by the Regulations with regards tothe proper use and implementation of data standards such as ISWC that will ultimately support the proper identification of rightsholders.

January 4, 2020 by Trichordist