Month: September 2020

On Jan. 1, 2021, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) will begin administering the new blanket license available to interactive streaming and individual download services in the United States. The MLC will then collect mechanical royalties from those services and distribute those royalties to musical works copyright holders. All of this will happen in accordance with the Music Modernization Act (MMA) that was signed into law in 2018.

Read More: https://musicrow.com/2020/09/mechanical-licensing-collective-offers-early-look-into-the-mlc-portal/

5 million: That’s how many digital albums were sold on the music platform Bandcamp in the last year, per the Los Angeles Times.

With its artist-first business model, Bandcamp, founded in 2008, has become the favored platform for many independent musicians who are frustrated with the minuscule royalties paid out by dominant streaming platforms like Spotify. In March, when live performances dried up due to the pandemic, Bandcamp announced that on the first Friday of every month, it would waive the 15% cut it takes on digital sales (and 10% on physical sales), allowing artists to receive contributions from fans in their entirety.

Read More: https://marker.medium.com/bandcamps-attempt-to-take-on-spotify-by-the-numbers-3504203ea1fc

Dozens of established filmmakers joined with the Directors Guild of America, the National Association of Theatre Owners and the Motion Picture Association to urge Congress to come to the aid of movie theaters devastated by COVID-19.

Read More: https://deadline.com/2020/09/movie-theater-rescue-filmmakers-nato-mpa-dga-letter-to-congress-theaters-1234589055/

Remember when Spotify bought Joe Rogan’s podcast and signed him to deliver futures? Big money, big press release. Big chuckles in some quarters, why? Welcome to the world of artist relations, Mr. Ek.

Read More: https://artistrightswatch.com/2020/09/28/spotifys-got-another-artist-relations-issue-joe-rogan/

A payment system claiming to automate the collection, tracking and allocation of film company revenues, as well as predicting future box-office success, was the second tech firm to pitch at the Zinemaldia Start Up Challenge, which broadcast live from San Sebastian Film Festival online Friday.

Read More: https://variety.com/2020/film/festivals/san-sebastian-zinemaldia-startup-challenge-filmchain-1234783626/

A legal stoush has erupted in the US over who owns the rights to the iconic “smiley face” that has adorned rock band Nirvana’s T-shirts and merchandise for the past quarter of a century.

Read More: https://www.bandt.com.au/smells-like-copyright-infringement-designer-sues-saying-he-invented-nirvanas-smiley-face-not-kurt-cobain/

Peter Paterno, an attorney for the Doobie Brothers, dispatched a letter to the 70-year-old comedian, accusing him of copyright infringement over the use of one of the band’s songs, reported Ultimate Classic Rock on Thursday. The 1972 Doobies hit “Listen to the Music” is featured in a commercial for Murray’s line of golf apparel.

Read More: https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ny-doobie-brothers-bill-murray-20200925-cmg5smd7ujeqjfpdcepp5tobfm-story.html

Days after sharing a video of of him urinating on his Grammy Award, Kanye West has called out for a change in the way music industry and record labels function. The rapper, who has been making headlines for his unfiltered tweets and opinions, had earlier also criticised music labels over their ownership of rights to artists’ music. Demanding for artists to ‘own rights’ their music and songs, Kanye said he was ‘Team Free Artists’ in his latest interview with Billboard.

Read More: https://www.msn.com/en-in/entertainment/other/kanye-west-offers-support-to-taylor-swift-amid-fights-for-music-ownership-rights-labels-industry-broken/ar-BB19nsFw

Their existence ensures that artists and performers around the world are due payment whenever recordings of their music are played on the radio or to a live audience. (And, particularly in the US, when those recordings are played on a non-interactive streaming service.)

Read More: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/artists-are-missing-out-on-tens-of-millions-of-dollars-from-neighbouring-rights-iafar-is-trying-to-fix-the-problem/

Lawyers representing the estate of the late songwriter Ed Townsend in the copyright dispute over Ed Sheeran’s ‘Thinking Out Loud’ have claimed that the ongoing legal battle is another example of the music industry unfairly exploiting black musicians.

Read More: https://completemusicupdate.com/article/renowned-civil-rights-lawyer-joins-lets-get-it-on-song-theft-case/

Paris – 24 September 2020 – Music creators stand to benefit from new improved technology that will help track their works better and remunerate them faster in the increasingly important music streaming environment.

Read More: https://www.cisac.org/Newsroom/News-Releases/New-improved-music-identifier-will-help-creators-in-the-all-important-digital-market

Several European musician organizations, including Brussels-headquartered AEPO-ARTIS and ECSA, as well as Paris-based FIM, have slammed Stockholm’s Epidemic Sound for affording clients access to a 100% royalty-free music library.

Read More: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/09/23/epidemic-sound-criticism/

The CASE Act is a bipartisan copyright dispute resolution bill that is inches away from becoming the law of the land. Unfortunately, though, it has stalled in the Senate due to just one Senator. The bill calls for a “small claims” process staffed by U.S. Copyright Office attorneys for a limited category of infringement claims by creators, as well as an opportunity for a quick and inexpensive resolution by users of its various defenses to copyright infringement, such as fair use. The bill is an alternative approach to the one-size-fits-few federal copyright litigation that is far too expensive and complicated for working creators to utilize.

Read More: https://copyrightalliance.org/ca_post/stop-senator-ron-wyden-and-big-tech-from-crushing-creators-hopes/?fbclid=IwAR3aIGa1w9_5nBh05pvh4OIgIyfOBEN0WD21XbMmoJIUX7QD8eBrit8lv7E

Right now we are witnessing an arms race to offer consumers interactive livestreamed experiences.

Partnerships like Amazon Music’s recently-announced integration with Twitch show that music fans will soon expect a seamless interface that allows them to toggle between pure audio and audiovisual when their favorite creators go live.

Read More: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/live-streaming-must-respect-the-rights-of-songwriters/

Protocols Based on ‘The Safe Way Forward’ Multi-Union Report Released in June

Los Angeles —The unions representing casts and crews today announced they have reached an agreement with the major studios on protocols to allow the industry to safely re-open. The protocols pave the way for creative workers, who have been hard hit by the pandemic, to resume their crafts and livelihoods in workplaces redesigned around their health.

Read More: https://www.dga.org/News/PressReleases/2020/200921_DGA_SAGAFTRA_IATSE_Teamsters_BasicCrafts_Announce_COVID19_TestingAndProtocols.aspx

Hollywood’s top unions announced in a joint statement on Monday that they have reached a deal with the industry’s top studios to formalize COVID-19 safety regulations on film and television sets.

Read More: https://www.thewrap.com/hollywood-unions-finalize-formal-covid-19-safety-regulations-with-studios/

As part of his ongoing tirade against the music industry, the Recording Academy, and Universal Music Group, rapper Kanye West recently posted some 100 pages worth of his past recording contracts to Twitter. But are they really that bad?

Read More: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/09/20/kanye-west-contract-details/

The MLC finally posted its “by-laws” that gives some insight into its operations. For a non-profit like The MLC, Inc., the by laws are essentially the operating rules of the corporation.

Read More: https://thetrichordist.com/2020/09/19/the-mlc-posts-its-by-laws/

Recorded Artists Actors Performers Ltd (RAAP) is a collective management organisation for performers, whereas Phonographic Performance (Ireland) Ltd (PPI) is a collective management organisation for phonogram producers. Those undertakings entered into an agreement which stipulates how fees payable in Ireland for the playing in public –in bars and other publicly accessible places –or the broadcasting of recorded music must, after being paid by the users to PPI, be shared with the performers and, for that purpose, be paid on in part by PPI to RAAP. They are in disagreement in relation to the operation of that agreement as regards fees paid to PPI where the music was performed by a person who is neither a national nor a resident of a Member State of the European Economic Area (EEA)

Read More: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-09/cp200110en.pdf

Banksy has lost a battle with a greetings card firm over the trademark of one of his most famous works.

North Yorkshire-based Full Colour Black challenged the artist’s right to trademark his image of a protester throwing a bunch of flowers.

Read More: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54189113

The lawsuit being pursued by songwriter and record producer Kevin Risto over the distribution of equitable remuneration monies to session musicians in the US has been granted class action status. It means at least 30,000 musicians could benefit from any ruling in Risto’s favour.

Read More: https://completemusicupdate.com/article/dispute-over-us-ip-rights-distribution-fund-becomes-class-action-that-could-benefit-at-least-30000-musicians/

Kanye West put the spotlight on major label record contracts in a big way last night by posting more than a hundred pages of agreements between him and Universal Music onto Twitter. Although doing so mainly confirmed – via 113 individually posted JPEGs – that major label record contracts are long, tedious, can involve significant upfront expenditure on the part of the label, and usually involve said label retaining master rights and paying a minority share of income over to the artist.

Read More: https://completemusicupdate.com/article/kanye-west-publishes-his-universal-music-contracts-as-anti-label-twitter-rant-continues/

Hollywood’s major studios and key industry unions are close to inking an omnibus agreement to restart TV and film production in the U.S. under newly crafted safety protocols mandated by the pandemic.

Read More: https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/covid-19-safety-production-restart-1234773389/

UK collecting society PRS For Music has put out a new report explaining why it thinks stream-ripping should still be at the top of the music industry’s piracy gripe list.

Read More: https://completemusicupdate.com/article/stream-ripping-grew-1390-in-three-years-says-prs-for-music/

Producers of new scripted content — which typically spends an average of 11 months in production — will be battling against COVID-related delays well into 2021, far longer than their unscripted counterparts, according to a study from Ampere Analysis.

Read More: https://www.mediaplaynews.com/ampere-delays-of-scripted-content-to-last-well-into-2021/

BRUSSELS, Sept 10 (Reuters) – Europe’s creative industry has criticised the European Commission’s consultation on new EU copyright rules for departing from the original directive agreed last year and being unworkable.

Read More: https://uk.reuters.com/article/eu-copyright/europes-creative-industry-slams-eu-commission-for-rewriting-copyright-rules-idUKL8N2G74V5

In November, 2012, the Minnesota Department of Revenue notified the musician Venus DeMars that her tax returns would be audited. DeMars, a respected fixture in the Minneapolis rock scene, had performed since the mid-nineties as the lead singer of All the Pretty Horses, a moody, glam-inspired rock band. She and the group had released half a dozen albums and toured throughout the United States and abroad. Her accountant had deducted business expenses, such as money that had gone into touring and performance. But it quickly became apparent that the audit didn’t arise from any arithmetical errors. At stake was whether she was, indeed, an artist.

Read More: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/14/how-can-we-pay-for-creativity-in-the-digital-age

We’re pleased to bring to you a guest post by Tanvi Sehgal, discussing the impact of the Covid-19 induced shift from theatrical release of films to OTT release on the producers’ share of earnings and proposing an amendment to the cinema hall exception to the provision on mandatory royalty sharing under the Copyright Act in light of this shift. Tanvi is a guest faculty at the Faculty of Law, Delhi University, where she recently submitted her PhD thesis titled ‘Revisiting Copyright Law in View of Contemporary Developments’.

Read More: https://spicyip.com/2020/09/when-covid-19-shuttered-cinema-halls-should-producers-share-royalties-from-ott-release-of-films.html

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has written a new chapter of law regarding nonfiction works after a copyright win for the producers of Jersey Boys, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Read More: https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/JERSEY-BOYS-Producers-Win-in-Copyright-Suit-Appeals-Court-Adopts-New-Standard-20200910

A new study has found that one percent of artists generate 90 percent of all music streams – with the remaining 99 percent of creators garnering only 10 percent of plays.

Read More: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/09/10/music-streams-data/

TikTok Wednesday revealed some of the elusive workings of the prized algorithm that keeps hundreds of millions of users worldwide hooked on the viral video app.

Why it matters: The code TikTok uses to pick your next video is a large part of what has led the two-year-old company to achieve broad popularity along with a remarkable $20-$30 billion valuation. The key asset is in play as TikTok’s Chinese parent prepares to sell its U.S. operation amid fears about its relationship with China’s government.

Read More: https://www.axios.com/inside-tiktoks-killer-algorithm-52454fb2-6bab-405d-a407-31954ac1cf16.html

Sony Music has agreed to pay $12.7 million to artists in a class action lawsuit brought by the estate of 1950s pop star Rick Nelson, according to a settlement agreement filed in the US on Friday (September 4).

Read More: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/sony-music-reaches-12-7m-settlement-in-rick-nelson-royalties-suit/sic business

Despite the unprecedented impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic, BMI closed its fiscal year ended June 30 with historic revenue and royalty distributions. The company generated $1.311 billion in revenue, a $28 million increase over the previous year and distributed and administered $1.233 billion to its affiliated songwriters, composers and publishers, 3% or $37 million more than last year. For the fifth consecutive year, these results represent the highest reported public performance revenues and royalty distributions of any music rights organization in the world.

Read More: https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/bmi-announces-record-revenue-of-1.311-billion

In an interview with Israeli financial newspaper Globes, former Spotify exec Tristan Jehan explained why artists receive notoriously low royalty payments from Spotify and other streaming music services.

Read More: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/09/09/former-spotify-exec-streaming/

While the concert industry is already down as much as 98% in quarterly revenues due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some silver linings are beginning to emerge in the music biz. And sync licensing, one of many artists’ primary revenue streams for the foreseeable future without touring, is one of them.

Read More: https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/songtradr-sync-licensing-lockdown-musicians-1234762749/

Music is an international language. It crosses boundaries and borders of all kinds. Discriminating against artists based on their nationality is wrong. But that is what is happening in the United Kingdom and other countries that single out American music creators and refuse to pay them for their work. This unfair treatment denies American creators more than $330 million in royalty payments a year – money that would surely benefit artists struggling to make a living.

It’s time to end discrimination against American music creators overseas.

Read More: https://www.fairtradeofmusic.com/

The amount of new material illegally shared on pirate websites has fallen sharply after three alleged members of a group called Sparks were charged with copyright-infringement conspiracy.

Sparks is a “release group” that allegedly acquires films, music and other digital material before their official release and puts them online.

Read More: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54055662

Films hoping to compete for the best picture Oscar will have to meet certain criteria over diversity, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says.

The Academy set out four “standards” which it hopes will boost representation and inclusion both in front of and behind the camera.

Read More: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54082567

In Affirming “National Treatment” Principle, European Court of Justice Rejects Unfair Treatment of Music Creators Based on Nationality

Washington, DC – September 8, 2020 – SoundExchange praised the European Court of Justice’s ruling ordering European Union countries to treat music creators equally regardless of their nationality, recognizing this as an important milestone in the fight to ensure music fairness.

Read More: https://artistrightswatch.com/2020/09/08/press-release-soundexchange-praises-european-union-court-decision-on-equal-treatment-for-creators/

At some point in the coming days, there will be an announcement for the new head of the U.S. Copyright Office. I fully expect that everyone will have their litmus test for whether the new person (called the “Register” for historical reasons that have probably outlived their usefulness) should be appointed. The fact is that the Register is, if you ask me, a thankless job that has been filled by wonderful people for many, many years. It’s not a job that is really suited to anyone’s litmus test.

Read More: https://musictechpolicy.com/2020/09/05/this-is-the-only-question-for-the-next-head-of-the-copyright-office/

September is Copyright Advocacy Month at the Dramatists Guild! For 30 days, the DG will share tips on what exactly copyright means, how it benefits theatrical writers, and what you can do to protect your copyright. The Dramatists Guild will be posting this information on their social media channels, sending it out via email, and publishing it on their website, https://www.dramatistsguild.com/copyright-advocacy.

Read More: https://www.broadwayworld.com/industry/article/The-Dramatists-Guild-in-Partnership-with-DG-Copyright-Management-Presents-Copyright-Advocacy-Month-20200902

Earlier this year, Digital Music News was first to report that California lawmakers had agreed to revise the restrictions within Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), making it easier for artists and music industry professionals to collaborate. Now, the Legislature has passed a bill, AB 2257, containing these long-sought exemptions.

Read More: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/09/03/legislature-passes-ab-2257/

The main ‘Shake It Off’ song-theft legal battle is set to plough on after the judge overseeing the case knocked back Taylor Swift’s latest efforts to have the whole matter dismissed. Or, if you prefer, Taylor Swift has failed to shake off the ‘Shake It Off’ litigation again. Because that almost pun never gets old.

Read More: https://completemusicupdate.com/article/taylor-swift-fails-to-shake-off-the-shake-it-off-litigation-again/

The recent lawsuit (PDF) against automaker Volvo over an Instagram story shines new light on the convoluted question of social media content licensing and rights, especially when it comes to sharing or reposting “public” content. The terms of use for social media platforms have long been seen as overbroad when it comes to granting the companies themselves rights to user-generated content. These newest cases highlight the risks for professional photographers, models, and the companies they interact with online. The rapidly-developing social media world is facing a slow-changing legal system, and cases like these are of vital importance and should be followed closely.

Read More: https://www.forbes.com/sites/legalentertainment/2020/09/03/volvo-instagram-lawsuit-exposes-social-media-copyright-nuances/#225f007d4f88

The musician Eddy Grant is suing the Trump campaign for copyright infringement over the use of the song “Electric Avenue” and Twitter has removed a video containing the number from one of President Trump’s tweets.

Read More: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/eddy-grant-brings-copyright-lawsuit-against-trump-over-electric-avenue-twitter-kills-video

The United States Copyright Office recently released a New Group Registration Option for Short Online Literary Works (GRTX), which would allow an applicant to register up to 50 short online literary works with one application and one filing fee. A group registration covers the copyrightable text in each literary work submitted with the group registration, such that the copyright owner may seek a separate award for each work infringed.

Read More: https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2020/09/01/new-group-copyright-registration-option-raises-questions-around-definition-published-digital-age/id=124731/