Music Licensing Groups Pitch Congress on Royalty Structure

Legislators can do more to ensure a functioning music licensing marketplace, various groups told the House Intellectual Property Subcommittee Tuesday. The subcommittee had a field hearing in Nashville looking at the marketplace in the five years since passage of the Music Modernization Act (see 2208150042). The Music.Innovation.Consumers Coalition, in a letter to the subcommittee, argued for more transparency for licensing public performance rights for musical works. The coalition includes NAB, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, CTA, the Digital Media Association and various trade groups representing bars, breweries and consumer-facing businesses. The coalition recently wrote the register of copyrights highlighting the need for a “comprehensive database of public performance of musical works data.” They wrote that licensees rely on “fragmented and unreliable” data when trying to negotiate with an ever-growing list of performance rights organizations like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. The coalition looks forward to working with the subcommittee on “solutions” for improving data transparency, the coalition wrote Tuesday. The musicFIRST Coalition wrote the subcommittee in support of the American Music Fairness Act Monday (see 2302020068). Members include the Recording Industry Association of America, Sound Exchange, American Association of Independent Musicians and the Recording Academy. Introduced by House Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., the AM/FM Act would “finally require U.S. broadcasters to recognize the property rights of music artists and compensate them for the use of their songs on domestic AM/FM radio,” which would bring radio in line with streaming services and digital platforms. NAB opposes the AM/FM Act (see 2108120059).