In recent months, we’ve met with senior congressional staff with music responsibilities including those who work for leading Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Our goal is to explain and promote pubic radio’s unique role in music and in enabling vibrant local music communities. And in the process we’re seeking to ensure that policy makers understand the needs and challenges of public radio in presenting and curating music. We’re intent on paving the way for future music licensing improvements. As noted below, we had some success in tweaking a proposal called the Music Modernization Act (MMA) to protect public radio from additional administrative burdens and fees.

A new “omnibus” version of this proposal unanimously passed the House Judiciary Committee on April 11, 2018. Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) packaged the original MMA and a few other bills in an attempt to address various music licensing issues before he retires later this year. If enacted, this would be the most significant update to music copyright law in decades. The legislation would:

• Create a blanket “mechanical” licensing system for interactive streaming and digital downloads to facilitate royalty payments for musical compositions to songwriters, composers and music publishers.
  • The blanket licensing system is intended for digital music services like those offered by Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Pandora and Google, which would fund a “musical licensing collective” (reportedly to be called “SongExchange”) to create a central database of music compositions and copyright owners, and administer the royalty collection and payments (similar to the way SoundExchange collects performance royalties for sound recordings played by non-interactive digital services).
  • At our request, the House Judiciary Committee revised the bill to clarify that public broadcasting entities would not be required to submit monthly reports and administrative fees to the new music licensing collective if they provide interactive streaming or digital downloads pursuant to voluntary direct (nonblanket) licenses.
• Extend the public performance right to sound recordings made before 1972, so digital radio streaming services would pay royalties for pre-1972 sound recordings (same as for post-72 recordings).
• Codify the way SoundExchange pays royalties to producers and sound engineers; and
• Establish a uniform market-based rate standard for the Copyright Royalty Board to use in setting performance royalties for sound recordings, to create parity among music services (e.g., so satellite radio would have the same rate-setting standard as internet radio).

Notably, one proposal that was not included is the creation of a performance royalty for sound recordings played over traditional terrestrial radio broadcasts, with legislators encouraging NAB and the recording industry to negotiate a solution to that longstanding issue.

The consensus mega-MMA enjoys broad bipartisan support in Congress and among major music industry stakeholders, from songwriters/music pubilshers to recording artists/labels to commercial digital streaming platforms. The bill now awaits consideration by the full House of Representatives (and an introduction in the Senate, where several of the individual copyright reform bills are pending). The bill has momentum, although the legislative clock is tick-tocking towards summer recess and mid-term elections.

We will keep you posted on the bill’s progress. In the meantime, please reach out to Mike Riksen ([email protected] or 202-513-2741) or Joni Lupovitz ([email protected] or 202-513-3652) with questions about the MMA.