For some reason, there’s a focus at the moment on songwriter royalties and in particular for streaming royalty rates. Notice that I said “rates” not “share” or the one I find particularly irritating, “share of the pie.” Let us be clear—there is no “pie” there are only “rates”. Or should be. Let’s investigate why. To frame this idea (speaking […]
The imaginary inauguration singer.
Eric “Uncle Sugar” Schmidt is back in town and is finding a trough for every snout.
The coordinated moves by Silicon Valley to silence Donald Trump are having unintended consequences, but consequences that the legions of Big Tech lawyers must have thought through. Setting aside the fact that they took down so many accounts so quickly on Twitter that they must have been working from a list prepared long ago, and setting […]
Songwriters are beginning to realize that the government is forcing them to use The MLC, Inc. (financed by the streaming services) as their mechanical licensing collective for collecting and paying their mechanical royalties. So now they are asking questions about when and how that payment is to be made, among other things. The over arching […]
We’re starting to see a narrative emerging from the digital music services in reaction to artists chafing under the misery of streaming royalties. Streamers want lawmakers to focus attention on the allocation of current period revenue that they pay to creators and deflect attention from the company’s stock market valuation (or private company valuation). That’s […]
I’m grateful to Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts, Austin Texas Musicians and the Austin Music Foundation for hosting an information webinar next week on the impact of the new blanket mechanical license under the Music Modernization Act on independent songwriters. We will also cover the nuts and bolts of dealing with The MLC, […]
Should old acquaintance be forgot,and never brought to mind? Auld Lang Syne, by Robert Burns If you’ve gotten accustomed to regular mechanical royalty checks every month or quarter paid directly to you (or your publisher) by streaming services or for downloads like iTunes, fasten your seatbelt. You may have some surprises coming in this time […]
Please take a moment and complete the ArtistRightsWatch new anonymous 10 question survey regarding The MLC at this link. We’re gathering general anonymized information about how songwriters and publishers have heard about The MLC and whether you think an independent advocate (or an “ombudsman”) would be useful to you. This will help us plan future […]
MTP readers will recall that Senator Thom Tillis has hosted many hearing on how to fix the DMCA’s broken notice and takedown process. Senator Tillis has released a discussion draft of those revisions titled the “Digital Copyright Act of 2021” including this summary of the proposals (and yes that sound you heard was the privileged […]
