music licensing – The Trichordist

Songwriters Are Being Asked to Accept Something We’ve Never Seen Before

The freeze is back.

The first settlement in the Phonorecords V mechanical royalty proceeding is now on file (see below). A settlement is supposed to result from a “voluntary negotiation,” so the document raises a simple question: when exactly did the negotiation happen?

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The parties describe “conversations” with other participants. Maybe there were conversations. But conversations are not the same thing as negotiation. A proposal presented as essentially a finished product, with little or no opportunity to influence its terms, is notification—not negotiation.

The Parties have had settlement conversations regarding the so-called Subpart B rates and terms with the other copyright owner Participants in the Proceeding (Songwriters Guild of America, World Collections, Inc., Eight Mile Music Companies, and George Johnson), who declined to join this settlement.

That distinction is crucial because this settlement would establish the statutory mechanical royalty rate for physical records and permanent downloads starting in 2028 through 2032. Those rates affect every songwriter, including those ex-US songwriters whose songs are exploited in the US. According to sources overseas, ex-US songwriter groups were not consulted, although it is customary for NMPA and NSAI to not engage with them even though they are a significant group (other than major mostly English language songwriters who are represented in the US by major publishers).

This means that it is likely that an alternative proposal or several alternative proposals will come to the Copyright Royalty Board in coming days from those who were not included in the NMPA’s settlement. As the settlement itself anticipates, whatever deal the Judges end up adopting will be published as a tentative ruling allowing public comment, but that’s down the line. Watch this space or the CRB website for Phonorecords V for more on deadlines, etc., if you want to comment.

To our knowledge, this is also the first time we’ve seen multiple competing settlements in a CRB phonorecords proceeding. Multiple settlements are common in webcasting and other CRB cases because different categories of music users—commercial broadcasters, NPR, college radio, religious broadcasters, and others—often negotiate different deals tailored to their own services. Mechanical royalty proceedings have traditionally been different. Everyone is negotiating one statutory rate that applies across the board divided into two broad categories by music user: labels (who pay for physical and downloads), and digital services like Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Meta (who pay for streaming mechanicals and control the global streaming market and some of which largely control AI models so lead the charge on AI theft for training).

The settlement itself also leaves some obvious questions unanswered.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing every aspect of music licensing, yet AI is not mentioned at all in the settlement. If downloads or streaming services increasingly contain AI-generated tracks that may not even qualify for copyright protection, should those recordings receive statutory licenses or royalties at all? The Copyright Office has repeatedly stated that works lacking sufficient human authorship cannot be registered for copyright to enjoy the protections of the Copyright Act, and the statutory license is part of the Copyright Act. If that principle eventually affects downloads or streaming (which we think it does right now), it is difficult to imagine that it will never influence the economics of physical or download mechanical royalties as well. That issue received no attention in the NMPA’s settlement.

Then there is another provision that deserves far more discussion.

The settlement continues the existing CPI adjustment mechanism that songwriter’s fought for in the last rate setting that increased the mechanical rate from the frozen 9.1¢ proposed by the NMPA and major labels to 12¢ plus a “Cost of Living Adjustment” (or “COLA”) thanks to the Judges rejection of the extended freeze. In other words, they did the opposite of what we recently suggested in Don’t Freeze Mechanicals Again.

Adopting a 12¢ base rate makes no sense—that’s the same rate as the Judges took as the base rate for the first year of the five year rate period starting in 2023 and then applied the COLA to that rate in subsequent years. Of course, that 12¢ rate has been eroded by inflation every year and is now worth about 10¢ without the COLA, but songwriters negotiated and received that COLA which sustained the value of the rate. That’s how we got from 12¢ in 2023 to the current 13.1¢ rate in 2026 that will probably increase again for 2027 (our guess is somewhere in the 13.4¢ to 13.6¢ range). Why wouldn’t you just take that highest rate achieved during the last year of the Phonorecords IV period (2027) and start applying the COLA to that in the first year of the Phonorecords V period (2028)? Rather than go back to the arbitrary 12¢ reference rate? Huh?

On its first glance, adopting a COLA for the new rates sounds reasonable because it protects songwriters against inflation. But the formula contains no floor preventing the statutory rate from declining if cumulative CPI were ever to fall.

Deflation may be unlikely. That’s not the concern. But the COLA could still cause rates to decline. All that has to happen is that inflation doesn’t rise at the same rate or greater from one year to the next and then the COLA-adjusted statutory rate will decline.

The point is that, for what may be the first time in the history of the statutory rate and certainly since the modern Copyright Act took effect in 1978, songwriters are being asked to accept a statutory mechanical royalty structure under which the minimum statutory rate could actually move backward, and very likely will decline.

A simple solution exists. The regulation could easily provide that each year’s rate is the greater of (1) the COLA-adjusted calculation or (2) the prior year’s rate. That would preserve the existing inflation formula while ensuring the statutory royalty never declines.

Why wasn’t that included? Or better yet, why wasn’t an actual value based increase included since we are still digging out of two prior freezes of the statutory rate one from 1909-1978 when the rate froze at 2¢ and the other from 2006-2022 when the rate froze at 9.1¢.

That’s a fair question.

So is another one.

If we’re going to lock in the statutory mechanical royalty through 2032, shouldn’t there have been a meaningful discussion—not just among the settling parties, but across the songwriting community—about AI, future valuation, whether there should be a statutory minimum for streaming and whether the statutory minimum itself should ever be permitted to decrease?

Those conversations are coming. The only question is whether they should have happened before the settlement was filed instead of afterward. We had hoped for a longer table with more voices. Whether that happens remains to be seen.

USCO Mechanical Rates -w- Supplement Download

July 2, 2026 by Trichordist

Artist Rights Institute and Abby North Press Copyright Office for Accountability in MLC Redesignation

On August 22, 2025, the Artist Rights Institute, together with music publisher Abby North, filed joint comments with the U.S. Copyright Office as part of the agency’s ongoing five-year redesignation review of the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC). The comments memorialize an ex parte meeting with senior Copyright Office attorneys and stress that this redesignation process must not become a perfunctory exercise. Instead, it should serve as a meaningful opportunity to hold the MLC accountable for its statutory obligations.

The filing underscores that Congress deliberately gave the Copyright Office broad regulatory oversight because the MLC was established as an experiment under the Music Modernization Act. After five years, the evidence points to serious deficiencies: continuing metadata errors, lack of access to bulk matching tools for rightsholders, opaque governance decisions, and unresolved questions about audits and litigation. Most strikingly, the MLC’s unilateral investment of unmatched royalties in the securities markets—totaling more than $1.2 billion on the MLC’s latest tax return—raises concerns about statutory authority and fiduciary duties.

The joint comments argue that interest on unmatched royalties was intended by Congress as a penalty on licensees for failure to timely match and pay, not as a windfall for the MLC itself. By adopting an unauthorized investment policy, the MLC risks stepping outside its mandate, exposing its officers and directors to fiduciary liability.

To restore transparency and trust, the Institute and Ms. North propose clear regulatory reforms: conditional redesignation tied to performance benchmarks, publication of vendor match rates, real-time disclosure of governance actions, clarified metadata responsibilities, and monthly reporting of investment holdings. These reforms would align the U.S. system with international best practices and protect songwriters whose livelihoods depend on fair and accurate royalty distributions.

Read the full joint comments below.

Artist-Rights-Institute-to-USCO-1-Aug-22-2025 Download

August 27, 2025 by thetrichordist

@ArtistRights Newsletter 8/18/25: From Jimmy Lai’s show trial in Hong Kong to the redesignation fight over the Mechanical Licensing Collective, this week’s stories spotlight artist rights, ticketing reform, AI scraping, and SoundExchange’s battle with SiriusXM.

Save the Date! September 18 Artist Rights Roundtable in Washington produced by Artist Rights Institute/American University Kogod Business & Entertainment Program. Details at this link!

Reddit Will Block the Internet Archive (to stop AI scraping) (The Verge/Jay Peters)

SHILLING LIKE IT’S 1999: ARS, ANTHROPIC, AND THE INTERNET OF OTHER PEOPLE’S THINGS(MusicTechPolicy/Chris Castle)

SoundExchange v. SiriusXM

SOUNDEXCHANGE SLAMS JUDGE’S RULING IN SIRIUSXM CASE AS ‘ENTIRELY WRONG ON THE LAW’(MusicBusinessWorldwide/Mandy Dalugdug)

PINKERTONS REDUX: ANTI-LABOR NEW YORK COURT ATTEMPTS TO CUT OFF LITIGATION BY SOUNDEXCHANGE AGAINST SIRIUS/PANDORA (MusicTechPolicy/Chris Castle)

August 20, 2025 by Trichordist Editor

Hey Budweiser, You Give Beer a Bad Name

In a world where zero royalties becomes a brag, and one second of music is one second too far.

Let me set the stage: Cannes Lions is the annual eurotrash…to coin a phrase…circular self-congratulatory hype fest at which the biggest brands and ad agencies in the world if not the Solar System spend unreal amounts of money telling each other how wonderful they are. Kind of like HITS Magazine goes to Cannes but with a real budget. And of course the world’s biggest ad platform–guess who–has a major presence there among the bling and yachts of the elites tied up in Yachtville by the Sea. And of course they give each other prizes, and long-time readers know how much we love a good prize, Nyan Cat wise.

Enter the King of Swill, the mind-numbingly stupid Budweiser marketing department. Or as they say in Cannes, Le roi de la bibine.

Credit where it’s due: British Bud-hater and our friend Chris Cooke at CMU flagged this jaw-dropper from Cannes Lions, where Budweiser took home the Grand Prix for its “One‑Second Ad” campaign—a series of ultra-short TikTok clips that featured the one second of hooks from iconic songs. The gimmick? Tease the audience just long enough to trigger nostalgia, then let the internet do the rest. The beer is offensive enough to any right-thinking Englishman, but the theft? Ooh la la.

Cannes Clown

Budweiser’s award-winning brag? “Zero ads were skipped. $0 spent on music right$.” Yes, that’s correct–“right$”.

That quote should hang in a museum of creative disinformation.

There’s an old copyright myth known as the “7‑second rule”—the idea that using a short snippet of a song (usually under 7 seconds) doesn’t require a license. It’s pure urban legend. No court has ever upheld such a rule, but it sticks around because music users desperately want it to be true. Budweiser didn’t just flirt with the myth—it took the myth on a date to Short Attention Span Theater, built an ad campaign around it, and walked away with the biggest prize in advertising to the cheers of Googlers everywhere.

When Theft from artists Becomes a Business Model–again

But maybe this kind of stunt shouldn’t come as a surprise. When the richest corporations in commercial history are openly scraping, mimicking, and monetizing millions of copyrighted works to train AI models—without permission and without payment—and so far getting away with it, it sends a signal. A signal that says: “This isn’t theft, it’s innovation.” Yeah, that’s the ticket. Give them a prize.

So of course Budweiser’s corporate brethren start thinking: “Me too.”

As Austin songwriter Guy Forsyth wrote in Long Long Time, “Americans are freedom-loving people, and nothing says freedom like getting away with it.” That lyric, in this context, resonates like a manifesto for scumbags.

The Immorality of Virality

For artists and the musicians and vocalists who created the value that Budweiser is extracting, the campaign’s success is a masterclass in bad precedent. It’s one thing to misunderstand copyright; it’s another to market that misunderstanding as a feature. When global brands publicly celebrate not paying for music–in Cannes, of all places—the very tone-deaf foundation of their ad’s emotional resonance sends a corrosive signal to the entire creative economy. And, frankly, to fans.

Oops!… I Did It Again, bragged Budweiser, proudly skipping royalties like it’s Free Fallin’, hoping no one notices they’re just Smooth Criminals playing Cheap Thrills with other people’s work. It’s not Without Me—it’s without paying anyone—because apparently Money for Nothing is still the vibe, and The Sound of Silence is what they expect from artists they’ve ghosted.

Because make no mistake: even one second of a recording can be legally actionable particularly when the intentional infringing conspiracy gets a freaking award for doing it. That’s not just law—it’s basic respect, which is kind of the same thing. Which makes Budweiser’s campaign less of a legal grey area and more of a cultural red flag with a bunch of zeros. Meaning the ultimate jury award from a real jury, not a Cannes jury.

This is the immorality of virality: weaponizing cultural shorthand to score branding points, while erasing the very artists who make those moments recognizable. When the applause dies down in Yachtville, what’s left is a case study in how to win by stealing — not creating.

June 27, 2025June 27, 2025 by theinvisiblestagehand

A New Twist in the AM Radio Debate: Why Tying AM Mandates to AMFA Is a Game-Changer #IRespectMusic

The latest twist in the long-running AM radio saga comes from a new alliance: cars and music. Automaker trade groups Alliance for Automotive Innovation, Consumer Technology Association, and Zero Emission Transportation Association are shoulder to shoulder with the musicFIRST Coalition and SoundExchange in urging Congress to link the “AM Radio in Every Vehicle Act” with the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA). If we’re going to mandate AM radios be placed in new cars then music played on those radios should pay the people who made that music. It’s unfair and fundamentally inconsistent to require one without the other, so broadcasters should pay artists.

What Is the American Music Fairness Act?

If you haven’t run across it yet, AMFA is bipartisan legislation sponsored by our champion Senator Marsha Blackburn in the Senate and our long-time ally Rep. Darrell Issa in the House of Representatives that would finally require AM/FM radio stations to pay performance royalties to recording artists and performers when their recordings are played over the air. Currently, the U.S. remains the only democracy that allows terrestrial radio to make billions from music without compensating performers.

Why Artists Get Left Out

As incredible as it may seem, under U.S. copyright law, terrestrial radio must pay songwriters and publishers—but not performers or sound recording rights holders. That means backup singers, session musicians, and producers receive zero compensation, even when their work drives–literally–billions in broadcast revenue. This is what allows the National Association of Broadcasters shillery to claim “we pay for music” and then try to pit artists against songwriters. That dog won’t hunt, but that never stops them from trying.

The musicFIRST Coalition, including SoundExchange and tons of artists and creators, has been front and center pushing Congress to close this loophole for years and we have been right there with them along with our friend Blake Morgan and his #IRespectMusic campaign.

“Mandating AM radio without addressing the performance royalty issue would perpetuate an inequity that denies hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to countless recording artists every year. Congress should not pass a mandate for radio without ensuring appropriate royalties for artists… They deserve to have their hard work respected and valued with fair compensation — like they receive in every other industrialized country.”
—SoundExchange CEO Michael Huppe

The Math on AMFA

U.S. radio plays over 240 million songs annually without compensating performers
The music industry could gain an estimated $200–300 million annually if Americans were paid for domestic and foreign broadcast plays
Aligns U.S. copyright with global norms—terrestrial radio already pays performers in virtually every other developed nation.

What is to be done

If Congress is going to mandate AM radio in every car, it can’t ignore the rights of the very artists who create the content. By demanding performance royalties through AMFA, we can preserve public safety benefits while ensuring creators are paid for their work. This is a rare chance for Congress to get it right—fairness and infrastructure can go hand-in-hand.

If you believe artists deserve fairness when their music plays on the radio, now is the time to act:

Sign the letter to Congress. The musicFIRST Action Center has made it easy—just a few clicks to add your name. 
Call your Senator and Representative and tell them to support both:
- American Music Fairness Act (H.R. 861 / S. 326)
- AM Radio in Every Vehicle Act—(S. 315 / H.R. 979–but only inclusive of performance royalties
Spread the word on social media with tags like #PassAMFA, #FairPayForArtists, #IRespectMusic

June 25, 2025 by Trichordist Editor