Tag: MLC

What to do with the MLC’s interest “float” on the black box?

MusicTechPolicy readers will have seen my post about the interest rate paid by the MLC on the rather sizable black box of “unmatched” funds sitting at a bank account (rumored to be City National Bank in Nashville).

That rate was modernized in the Music Modernization Act to be a floating rate: The Federal short term interest rate essentially set by the Federal Reserve. In fact, that particular federal rate is one of the lowest interest rates set by the Federal government and is the kind of interest rate you would want to be obligated pay–very low–if you knew you’d be in the business of holding large sums of money that you wanted to earn interest on yourself and make money on the spread, often called “the float.” (The black box is usually free money, so it’s actually an improvement.). For example, the bank prime loan rate is currently 5.5% that may be a good indicator of what you could get in the way of relatively risk free interest for a big lump sum–if not better for a really big lump sum, say $500,000,000.

The MLC is not, after all, the government, however much that fact might be lost on them. Why should the lowball government rate apply to the MLC instead of a competitive bank rate? Particularly when it comes to the substantial unmatched funds that songwriters and publishers are forced by the government to allow the MLC to hold and for which they control distribution–a bit of the old moral hazard there.

Indeed, you could also express that rate of involuntary saving as “prime plus x” where “x” is an additional money factor like 1%, so the rate floats upward to the songwriters’ advantage. Get some inspiration for this by looking at your credit card interest rate.

You probably have heard that the Federal Reserve is increasing the federal funds rate, and therefore all interest rates that are a function of the federal funds rate including the short term rate that the MLC is required by law to pay on the black box. The Federal Reserve is expecting to keep making significant increases in the federal interest rates in an effort to get inflation under control, which means that the MLC’s black box interest rate will also continue to increase significantly.

A quick recap: The MLC’s short term interest rate was 0.44% in January in keeping with then-prevailing Zero Interest Rate Policy (or the “lower bound”) of the Fed for the easy money years since the crash of 2008. But in August 2022 (that is, now) the MLC’s rate has increased to 2.84% monthly. The modern black box holding period in the Music Modernization Act is pretty clear:

Also recall that the black box is to be held for an arbitrarily modern period of time while the MLC attempts to locate the rightful recipients as is their statutory burden under the MMA. Different numbers are thrown around for this holding period, but a three year holding period seems to be popular and has the benefit of having been modernized in the Music Modernization Act itself (see above). Bear in mind that the first tranche of “historical” black box (“historical” means “late” in this context) was $424,384,787 and was paid in February of 2021–nearly 18 months ago.

Also recall that we were not given any information that I am aware of as to when the services paying this rather large sum of other people’s money first accrued the black box. People who line up on the shorter holding period side of the argument generally favor rapid market share distributions which tends to help the majors; people on the longer holding period of time generally favor redoubled efforts to find the people who are actually owed the money.

The third group is that the MLC should simply find who is owed the money, have the money being held earn the highest rate of risk-free interest possible, and pay all of the interest money to the correct people when found and not have this cutesy limitation on the money factor paid out for holding OPM. Their argument goes something like your government takes away my right to negotiate my own rates, tells me how much I can charge, then makes it difficult to find me but easy to use my song and now you also want to take away the money you say I’m owed and give it to rich people I don’t know before I’ve had a change to claim it and pay yourselves to not do your jobs?

So we are at the midpoint of the three year statutory holding period. Although remember that this is a two pronged holding period of the earlier of 3 years after the MLC got the cash or 3 years after the date the service started holding the money that it subsequently transferred–a different holding period which would likely end sooner than the date the money was transferred to the MLC.

Although we know the date that the money was transferred in the aggregate to the MLC we may not know exactly when the money was accrued without auditing (although you would think that the MLC would release those dates since the timing of the accrual is relevant to the MMA calculation).

According to my reading of the statute, the modernized interest rate would likely attach from the time the money was accrued by the service, so should have been transferred to the MLC with accrued interest, if any. This may be in lieu of or in addition to a late fee. Very modern.

This leaves us with a couple questions. Remember that after the holding period, the black box is to be transferred on a market share basis to all the copyright owners who could be identified based on usage, which includes usage under voluntary licenses that are not administered by the MLC.

So this raises some questions:

  1. Why should the black box be divided up amongst copyright owners who have voluntary licenses and who are not administered by the MLC? They presumably have the most accurate books and statements and may have already had a chance to recover.
  2. What happens to the accrued interest at the time of distribution? Why should the market share distribution include interest on money that didn’t belong to the recipients?
  3. The statute takes the position that the MLC must pay the interest rate but is silent on how much interest the MLC can earn from the bank holding the substantial deposit of the unmatched monies. There’s nothing that requires the MLC to pay over all earned interest.

    Here’s a rough justice calculation of 3 years compound interest at current rates with steadily increasing black box. While the holding period started at the .44% rate, I ran the numbers at the 2.84% rate because it was easier–but also left out an estimate of the increase in rates that is surely to come. Since we are at the midpoint of the holding period already, this gives you an idea:

Hypothetical chart of growth rate of unmatched funds (historical and current) over a three year period at 2.84% compounded monthly interest rate

Please take our Songwriter MLC Awareness Survey

Please take a few minutes (4 or so) to help us understand how the Mechanical Licensing Collective and the Copyright Office is doing getting the word out about signing up with the MLC and getting paid royalties (including your share of the $424 million black box/unmatched payment that has been sitting at MLC for months).

Your response are anonymous and we’ll post the results when we get a threshold number of responses. We’d really appreciate your help!

To take the survey on Survey Monkey, click here.

Good News for Music Tech Startups: DLC Changes Fee Structure for Using Blanket Compulsory License

Title I of the Music Modernization Act established a blanket mechanical royalty license, the mechanical licensing collective to create the musical works database and collect royalties, the Digital Licensee Coordinator (which represents the music users under the blanket license) and a system where the services pay for the millions evidently required to operate the MLC and create the musical works database (which may happen eventually but which currently is the Harry Fox Agency accessed via API).

Title I also established another first (to my knowledge):  The United States became the first country in the world to charge music users a fee for availing themselves of a compulsory license.  The way that works is that all users of the blanket license have to bear a share of the costs of operating the MLC and eventually establishing the musical works database (and whatever else is in the MLC’s budget like legal fees, executive pension contributions, bonuses, etc.).  This is called the “administrative assessment” and is established by the Copyright Royalty Judges through a hearing that only the DLC and the MLC were (and probably are) allowed to attend, yet sets the rates for music users not present.

The initial administrative assessment is divided into two parts: The startup costs for developing the HFA API and the operating costs of the MLC.  The startup costs for the API, vendor payments, etc., were assessed to be $33,500,000; that’s a pricey API.  The first year MLC operating costs were assessed to be $28,500,000.  Because it’s always groundhog day when it comes to music publishing proceedings before the Copyright Royalty Judges, the method of allocating these costs are a mind-numbing calculation that will require lawyers to interpret.  With all respect, the poor CRJs must wonder how anything ever actually happens in the music business based on the distorted view that parades before them.  You do have to ask yourself is this really the best we can do?  Imagine that the industry elected to solve its startup problems by single combat with one songwriter and one entrepreneur staying in a room until they made a deal.  Do you think that the best they could come up with is the system of compulsory licensing as it exists in the US?  Maybe.  Or maybe they’d come up with something simpler and less costly to administer in the absence of experts , lobbyists and lawyers.

My feeling is that the entire administrative assessment process is fraught with conflicts of interest, a view I made known in an op-ed and to the Senate Judiciary Committee staff at their request when the MMA was being drafted.  The staff actually agreed, but said their hands were tied because of “the parties”–which of course means “the lobbyists” because the MMA looked like what they call a “Two Lexus” lobbying contract.  Not for songwriters, of course.

Yet, the DLC appears to have reconsidered some of this tom foolery and should be praised for doing so.  The good news is that the market’s gravitational pull has caused the allocation of the assessment on startups to come back to earth in a much more realistic methodology.  Markets are funny that way, even markets for compulsory licenses.  While still out of step with the rest of the world, at least the US precedent appears much less likely to have the counterproductive effects that were obvious before MMA was signed into law due to the statute’s anticompetitive lock in.  And the DLC should be commended for having the courage and the energy to make the fairness-making changes.  That’s a wow moment.

Hats off to the DLC for getting out ahead of the issue.  I recommend reading the DLC filing supporting the revisions (technically a joint filing with MLC but it reads like it came from DLC with MLC signing off).  It’s clearly written and I think the narrative will be understandable and informative to a layperson (once you get past the bizarre structure of the entire thing).  The DLC tells us the reasons for revisiting the allocation:

Since the Judges adopted the initial administrative assessment regulations, the Parties [i.e., the DLC and MLC since no one else was allowed to participate even if they had a stake in the outcome] have gained a better understanding of the overall usage of sound recordings within the digital audio service industry, as well as the relative usage of various categories of services. This information has led the Parties to conclude that the allocation methodology could have significant impacts on smaller Licensees, and that the allocation methodology should be modified to better accommodate these Licensees, and that such is reasonable and appropriate. This is particularly the case as these Licensees transition to the new mechanical licensing system set forth in the Music Modernization Act (“MMA”) and navigate new reporting requirements, and further as the country continues to generally struggle through the economic and health effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While the cost, reporting requirements, and impacts of the pandemic are experienced by all Licensees, the Parties believe that it is reasonable and appropriate to modify the administrative assessment to better address the situations of smaller Licensees.

The “old” allocation resulted in this payment structure for services buying into the blanket license (setting aside download stores for the moment):

Old Assessment Alloction

It was that $60,000 plus an indeterminate share of operating costs that was the killer.  The new allocation is more precise applicable to other than download stores:

New Assessment Alloction

This makes a lot more sense and one can believe that some startups actually were asked what they think. Remember, David Lowery sent an open letter to the CRJs in 2019 raising this exact point reacting to the bizarre initial administrative assessment hearings:

The Judges should take into account that no startup has been present or able to negotiate the many burdens placed on them by this settlement. In particular, they have not been able to be heard by the Judges on the scope of these financial burdens that their competitors—some of the richest multinational corporations in history—have unilaterally decided to place on them with no push back.

This isn’t to say that any would be brave enough to come forward and challenge their betters if given a chance. But they should at least be given a chance.

There are some twists and turns to the new rule which was adopted by the CRJs as a final rule on January 8, 2021, and any startup should obviously get smart about the rules. But–these latest amendments have established two really great things: First, the DLC is paying attention. That is very good for the reasons David raises. The other is that the DLC is apparently actually talking to someone other than Google and Spotify and coming up with reasonable compromises. This is very, very good. Let’s hope it continues.

We’ll be watching.