Tag: US Copyright Office

What the MLC Can Learn from Orphan Works

As you may be aware, The MLC recently received $424 million as payment of the “inception to date” unmatched mechanical royalties held at a number of streaming platforms, sometimes called the “black box.” Why do we have a black box at all? For the same reason you have “pending and unmatched” at record companies–somebody decided to exploit the recording without clearing the song.

Streaming services will, no doubt, try to blame the labels for this missing data, but that dog don’t hunt. First, the streaming service has an independent obligation to obtain a license and therefore to know who they are licensing from. Just because the labels do, too, doesn’t diminish the service’s obligation. It must also be said that for years, services did not accept delivery of publishing metadata even if a label wanted to give it to them. So that helps explain how we get to $424 million. Although the money was paid around mid-February, it’s clearly grown because The MLC is to hold the funds in an interest bearing account. Although The MLC has yet to disclose the current balance. Maybe someday.

This payment is, rough justice, a quid pro quo for the new “reach back” safe harbor that the drafters of Title I came up with that denies songwriters the right to sue for statutory damages if a platform complies with their rules including paying this money. That’s correct–songwriters gave up a valuable right to get paid with their own money.

The MLC has not released details about these funds as yet, but one would expect that the vast majority of the unmatched would be for accounting periods prior to the enactment of Title I of the Music Modernization Act (Oct. 11, 2018). One reason that expectation would be justified is that Title I requires services to try hard(er) to match song royalties with song owners. The statute states “…a digital music provider shall engage in good-faith, commercially reasonable efforts to identify and locate each copyright owner of such musical work (or share thereof)” as a condition of being granted the safe harbor.

The statute then goes on to list some examples of “good faith commercially reasonable efforts”. This search, or lack thereof, is at the heart of Eight Mile Style and Martin Affiliated’s lawsuit against Spotify and the Harry Fox Agency. (As the amended complaint states, “Nowhere does the MMA limitation of liability section suggest that it lets a DMP off the hook for copyright infringement liability for matched works where the DMP simply committed copyright infringement. The same should also be true where the DMP had the information, or the means, to match, but simply ignored all remedies and requirements and committed copyright infringement instead. Spotify does not therefore meet the requirements for the liability limitations of the MMA with respect to Eight Mile for this reason alone.”)

The MMA language is similar to “reasonably diligent search” obligations for orphan works, which are typically works of copyright where the owner cannot be identified by the user after trying to find them. This may be the only aspect of orphan works practice that is relevant to the black box under MMA. Since considerable effort has been put into coming up with what constitutes a proper search particularly in Europe it might be a good idea to review those standards.

We may be able to learn somethng about what we expect the services to have already done before transferring the matching problem to the MLC and what we can expect the MLC to do now that they have the hot potato. The MMA provides non-exclusive examples of what would comprise a good search, so it is relevant what other best practices may be out there.

Establishing reference points for what constitutes “good faith commercially reasonable efforts” under MMA is important to answer the threshold question: Is the $424 million payment really all there is? How did the services arrive at this number? While we are impressed by the size of the payment, that’s exactly the reason why we should inquire further about how it was arrived at, what periods it is for and whether any deductions were made. Otherwise it’s a bit like buying the proverbial pig in the proverbial poke.

One method lawmakers have arrived at for determining reasonableness is whether the work could be identified by consulting readily available databases identified by experts (or common sense). For example, if a songwriter has all their metadata correct with the PROs, it’s going to be a bit hard to stomach that either the service or the MLC can’t find them.

Fortunately, we have the Memorandum of Understanding from the European Digital Libraries initiative which brought together a number of working groups to develop best practices to search for different copyright categories of orphan works. The Music/Sound Working Group was represented by Véronique Desbrosses of GESAC and Shira Perlmutter, then of IFPI and now Register of Copyrights (head of the U.S. Copyright Office). The Music/Sound Working Group established these reasonable search guidelines:

DUE DILIGENCE GUIDELINES

The [Music/Sound] Working Group further discussed what constituted appropriate due diligence in dealing with the interests of the groups represented at the table—i.e., what a responsible [user] should, and does, do to find the relevant right holders. We agreed that at least the following searches should be undertaken:

1. Check credits and other information appearing on the work’s packaging (including names, titles, date and place of recording) and follow up through those leads to find additional right holders (e.g., contacting a record [company] to find the performers).

2. Check the databases/membership lists of relevant associations or institutions representing the relevant category of right holder (including collecting societies, unions, and membership or trade associations). In the area of music/sound, such resources are extensive although not always exhaustive.

3. Utilise public search engines to locate right holders by following up on whatever names and facts are available.

4. Review online copyright registration lists maintained by government agencies, such as the U.S. Copyright Office.

Perhaps when the MLC audits the inception to date payments we’ll have some idea of whether the services complied with these simple guidelines.

The World is not Flat: @CISACNews and BIEM Focus on Vendor Lock-in at the MLC

One of the many U.S.-centric shortcomings of Title I of the Music Modernization Act (that created the Mechanical Licensing Collective, the safe harbor giveaway and the blanket license) is that it pretty much ignores the entire complex system of content management organizations outside the U.S. As they describe themselves, “CISAC and BIEM are international organisations representing Collective Management Organisations (“CMOs”) worldwide that are entrusted with the management of creators’ rights and, as such, have a direct interest in the Regulations governing the functioning of the Database and the transparency of MLC’s operations. CISAC and BIEM would like to thank the Office for highlighting the existence and particularity of entities such as CMOs that are not referred to in the MMA.”

I have to say at the outset that as someone who lived outside the U.S. for a big chunk of time, it’s rather embarrassing but sadly unsurprising that so little attention has been paid to the global system of CMOs and the cold fact that we are now weeks away from the January 1, 2021 deadline.

You would not be aware of this unless you read the many comments to the Copyright Office on the MLC oversight rule makings. Aside from the fact that these organizations have decades of experience with blanket mechanical licensing (which the MLC might benefit from), CISAC and BIEM should have been included in the MLC itself, particularly since the MLC promoters appear to have been handing out non-voting directorships to themselves. It is embarrassing, kind of like those Americans who think the best way to speak French is to speak English louder.

CISAC and BIEM raise excellent issues in their comments, which often are accompanied by gentle hint language indicating the points have been raised before and ignored, or at least not responded to. According to a recently posted “ex parte” letter, CISAC and BIEM have focused in on a critical issue–where is the MLC’s statutorily required database and what benefits accrue to its vendor–principally HFA which was recently reunited in the MLC with its former owners.

You can read the CISAC and BIEM ex parte letter here. (Ex parte letters essentially document private discussions by the Copyright Office on matters they are currently regulating. Ex parte letters help to build a full record on matters placed before the Copyright Office by interested parties that may or may not be addressed in regulations.)

Here’s a key excerpt that I think deserves more attention (and is not going to be covered by the trade press until the system collapses in all likelihood).

CISAC/BIEM also raised further concerns regarding potential competitive advantages that The MLC or its vendors’ access to information may have and risks that such information could potentially be used for purposes outside of Section 115 mechanicals. The USCO assured the CMOs that they were perfectly aware of this issue, which had also been raised by other parties, and considered that these concerns were being addressed in the Confidentiality Rulemaking, and that the Statute requires Regulations to prevent the disclosure or improper use of information or MLC records. The proposed Rule establishes that MLC vendors cannot use the data obtained for processing for other purposes. The USCO further confirmed that it was very much aware of the need to ensure the necessary balance and that it was still contemplating how best to resolve this, including whether there should be more regulation.

I have to say that this is not the impression I got from the first panel of “MLC week” rather that the panel seemed to think that at least any member of the public could use the data provided to the MLC for any purpose. Since the MLC’s vendors would also be members of the public ostensibly, it does seem that disconnect needs to be cleared up.

The ex parte letter continues:

The CMOs CISAC/BIEM considered that some of these concerns were based on the January 1 deadline and whether The MLC would be operating with HFA’s database or with its’ own DQI processed separate database.

This depends on the antecedent of “its” in the last clause. If you take The MLC as the antecedent, the meaning would be “or with The MLC’s own DQI processed separate database.” If you take HFA as the antecedent, the meaning would be “whether The MLC would be operating with HFA’s database or with HFA’s own DQI processed separate database.”

While I think that CISAC and BIEM meant the former, the reality appears to be the latter however nonsensical it may seem. This is because there do not appear to be two separate databases, just the HFA database that The MLC accesses through an API. The DQI operation is designed to improve the data quality of the HFA database which benefits both The MLC and HFA.

There seems to be more than a little confusion about this:


USCO noted that there are still open questions regarding this issue, as it seemed that the HFA database would be used as a starting point, but through programmes like DQI data was being updated, so it did not seem as if both databases were identical.

I would argue with this (and have). This idea that DQI was updating a database other than the HFA database sounds like there is a stand-alone musical works database as required by the statute. If so, where is it? Why does the DQI produce search results like this:

HFA DQI

The USCO reiterated that the proposed Confidentiality Rulemaking specifies the limitations imposed on proposed vendors and that The MLC had in writing acknowledged that neither The MLC nor its vendor owned the data. The USCO acknowledged that there was a lot of concern expressed about this issue and ensured the CMOs it was going to address this issue.

Ownership alone is not the only issue and misdirects attention. On the one hand, The MLC says it does not own the database (another example of drafting oversights in Title I of the MMA–ownership is one of those issues you would think would be clearly spelled out but was only referenced indirectly).

I come away from reading the ex parte letter more concerned than ever that the core issue that The MLC was tasked with by the Congress is simply not being addressed–where is the Congress’s musical works database? Remember the words of the legislative history:

“Music metadata has more often been seen as a competitive advantage for the party that controls the database, rather than as a resource for building an industry on.”

Who Owns The MLC Database of Songs?

If you’ve been following the evolution of the “aircraft carrier” revision of the U.S. Copyright Act styled the “Music Modernization Act,” you will remember that America now has a blanket license for the mechanical reproduction of songs (or will have as of 1/1/21).  The “MMA” comes in three parts (or as I say three and one-half):

  • Title I which establishes the blanket license, a willing-buyer willing-seller standard for mechanical royalty rate setting, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (called the “MLC”), the all-important safe harbor for Big Tech’s massive infringement of songs, and authorized the creation of the “musical works database” which is the subject of this post;
  • Title I-1/2 which gives certain small benefits to ASCAP and BMI;
  • Title II which provides meaningful relief and largely fixes the pre-72 loophole that the Turtles sued over (formerly the CLASSICS Act); and
  • Title III which gives producers a statutory basis for SoundExchange royalties, another truly meaningful change.

I supported Title II and Title III, but I have lots of bones to pick with Title I, not the least of which has to do with the musical works database.  A lot of my issues have to do with what I perceive as sloppy drafting and a mad rush to “get a bill” at all costs which has led to a strong need to “fix” a lot of “glitches” in Title I itself (such as the failure to dovetail the major change in the compulsory mechanical from a per-song basis to a blanket basis. This in turn has an affect on other copyright provisions such as the termination right for songwriters which is now having to get solved–maybe–through the caulking of regulations to cover sloppy workmanship.  (Caulk cracks.)

For those of us who sweep up behind the elephants in the circus of life, I fear that the musical works database of other people’s things is an 11th Century solution to a 21st Century problem–a list of things that will be very difficult to get right and even more difficult to keep right, not unlike William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book.  Static lists of dynamic things necessarily are out of date the moment they are fixed.  We are going to discuss Title I musical works database today from a very simple threshold question:  Who owns it?

Spoiler alert:  The public owns it.  This is logical, but like so many things in the drafting of Title I, the drafting is glitchy, which is what you call it if you’re in a good mood.  I apocryphally attribute the term “glitch” when applied to massive Internet data breaches to the Fathers of the Internet who not only failed to take care that the herd was protected but also created a never ending series of data breaches.  That, in turn, birthed the entire Internet security industry–you know, “glitch” protection. (Looking at you, Vint Cerf.)

When you consider that the most valuable asset of the MLC is going to be the song database, and this database of other people’s things must be created by the efforts of potentially hundreds of thousands of songwriters given no choice in the matter, ownership matters.  It would be a bit much for the U.S. Congress to require all this only to enrich one U.S. corporation controlled by the U.S. publishers by leveraging a compulsory license to create a very valuable private asset.  Particularly one paid for by other people that might then get taken and given to a replacement MLC.  (There’s that “taken” word again.)  That’s typically not what they do.

Let’s also remember that on paper, the MLC does not pay a penny for the cost of its operations, including the creation of the database.  The entire cost of the MLC’s operations is borne by the users of the blanket license through an organization called the Digital Licensee Coordinator.  (If you’re thinking what’s with these names, I know, I know.  Forget it, Jake, it’s Washington.)

This database ownership issue has been raised a couple times, and no one has answered it.  I made it part of a recent comment I filed with the Copyright Office in the current rule making for regulations implementing Title I.  Maybe they’ll get around to answering the question this time.  After a while, you have to wonder why they have not.

A side note demonstrating both that ownership matters and that The MLC is thinking about ownership:  a service mark registration for “The MLC”.  (A service mark is a kind of trademark.)  There is a difference between “the MLC” and “The MLC”.  That’s because “the MLC” is the organization envisioned by the Congress that has to be redesignated (think “re-approved”) by the Copyright Office every five years.  On the other hand, “The MLC” refers to “The MLC, Inc.” which is the corporation created by the super popular proponents of Title I who were designated the first MLC and who style themselves “The MLC” using the definite article.  But if I told you that there was a difference between “the MLC” and “The MLC” would you find that confusing?

The clear implication of the definite article seems to be that they don’t envision any future in which they will not be the MLC, i.e., will not be redesignated.  They also probably don’t envision a future where a different corporation would be designated the MLC and The MLC would be looking for something to do.  Maybe they know something we don’t, but there it is.

This also raises some interesting trademark questions should The MLC seek to prevent a successor from trading under the name “MLC”, enough to stop The MLC from claiming a proprietary interest in the statutory description.  That mark is arguably descriptive and probably should be denied.  In fact it’s so descriptive it actually asserts a private intellectual property interest in the statutory language that describes the organization created by statute.  Sort of like asserting a trademark in “TVA” or “ICC” or “FOIA”.

MLC TM Registration

Let’s be clear about who owns the Congressional database.  As you will see, the musical works database does not belong to the MLC or The MLC and if there is any confusion about that, the Copyright Office should clear it up right away (which would save having to go to other avenues to do the same thing).  There really isn’t a practical alternative to the Copyright Office jurisdiction.  Congress gave the Copyright Office broad regulatory powers over the MLC (and, therefore, The MLC).

The public “musical works database” that Congress envisioned in Title I of the Music Modernization Act is largely a crowdsourced asset.  Congress has asked the world’s songwriters or copyright owners to spend considerable time preparing their catalogs in whatever format The MLC and the DLC determine is good for The MLC (with the Office’s blessing through regulations).  There inevitably will be quality control and accuracy review costs invested by the world’s songwriters and copyright owners in making sure that their catalogs are correctly reflected in the musical works database.  “Copyright owners” may also include sound recording copyright owners asked to contribute their ISRCs or other data that they, too, have invested considerable expense in creating and maintaining.

Unfortunately, the transaction cost to the songwriter and copyright owner for participation in The MLC and crowdsourcing Congress’s database is an unfunded mandate at the moment.  From a commercial perspective, the dynamic evolution of data is a potentially limitless expense, yet we have both this unfunded mandate which will spike in the early years but continue on a rolling basis essentially forever.  Yet the MLC’s administrative assessment appears to be capped at a fixed increase by a settlement agreement.  Again, a “glitch.”  Still, MLC executives seem positively giddy about their prospects with all the relief of someone who got tapped for lifetime employment with a pension (no doubt) while the songwriters these leaders are to serve are having the fight of their lives.

Yet, it seems clear that at the time of passing Title I, Congress had no intention of using a public law to create a private asset.  Neither was their intention to use the law to leverage the creation of an asset for private ownership by whoever the head of the U.S. Copyright Office designated to be the MLC, regardless of how “popular” they might have been.

The creation of the musical works database is replete with hidden costs paid or incurred by songwriters and copyright owners.  Neither the Congress nor the Copyright Royalty Judges  were asked to directly address these hidden costs of creating the musical works database.   (The Copyright Royalty Judges (or “CRJs”) are relevant because they approve the DLC’s financial contribution to the MLC through the “Administrative Assessment.”  The assessment is intended to cover the “collective total costs” which includes broad categories of cost items related to the database.)  And as usual, these costs appear to have gone straight over the heads of the Congressional Budget Office in their mandated assessment of the costs of Title I.

Even so, the MMA Conference Report from Congress addresses the cost issue head on:

The [Congress] rejects statements that copyright owners benefit from paying for the costs of collectives to administer compulsory licenses in lieu of a free market. Therefore, the legislation directs that licensees should bear the reasonable costs of establishing and operating the new mechanical licensing collective. This transfer of costs is not unlimited, however, since it is strongly cabined by the term ‘‘reasonable.’’[1]

It will be impossible for the “new mechanical licensing collective” to fulfill its statutory duties or build the complete musical works database to which the United States aspires without songwriters and copyright owners around the world doing the intensive and costly spade work to prepare their data to be exported to The MLC.[2]  It is clear that the reasonable costs of preparing and exporting that data should be borne by The MLC[3] as part of the “Administrative Assessment.”[4]  This material cost clearly is covered by the definition of “collective total costs”[5] and so was, or should have been, included in the current Administrative Assessment,[6] unless the intention was to cover The MLC’s side of these costs and force songwriters and copyright owners to eat their side of the same transaction.  If that is the case, it would be helpful for the Copyright Office to clarify that intention in the name of transparency through their broad regulatory authority.

If there is another drafting glitch there, it is worth noting that the CRJs clearly contemplated revisiting the Administrative Assessment  on their own motion for good cause.[7]  If there were ever good cause, the staggering cost of registering potentially millions of songs would be it.[8]

It should be clear that no one’s intention was for the services to pay to create the musical works database and for the songwriters and copyright owners to labor to export their data to make the musical works database complete, only to have The MLC claim ownership of the musical works database, particularly if The MLC were not redesignated as the MLC following the five-year review by the Copyright Office.  That unhappy “take my ball and go home” arbitrage event is foreseeable and would entirely cut against the “continuity” contemplated by Congress.[9]

It is critical that the Copyright Office clarify in regulations that neither The MLC nor any other MLC owns the musical works database.  In fact, the MMA clearly states that “if a new entity is designated as the mechanical licensing collective, [the Office shall] adopt regulations to govern the transfer of licenses, funds, records, data, and administrative responsibilities from the existing mechanical licensing collective to the new entity.”[10]  Since The MLC will have to transfer the musical works database and the other statutory materials to the new MLC if they fail to be redesignated, there should be no misconceptions that The MLC “owns” the database and could withhold all or part of it.[11]  Because The MLC is just An MLC.

It should also be made clear that any MLC or DLC vendor does not obtain an ownership interest in any copy of all or part of the musical works database they may obtain for any reason.

This should be an easy ask of the Copyright Office.  Watch this space to find out if it is.

          * * * * * * * * *

[1] Report and Section-by-Section Analysis of H.R. 1551 by the Chairmen and Ranking Members of Senate and House Judiciary Committees, at 1 (2018) at 2 (emphasis added).

[2] This effort is referred to as “Play Your Part™” a business process trademarked by The MLC available at https://themlc.com/preparing-2021.

[3] I would point out that the way The MLC should work—and in the end probably will end up functioning as a practical matter–is that The MLC needs to be able to handle however songwriters ingest their data.  Instead, it appears that The MLC is trying to dictate to all the songwriters in the world how they should assemble their song data before they register with The MLC. If The MLC wants to shift that burden, they should expect to pay for it.  Otherwise, this is exactly backwards.

[4] 17 U.S.C. §115 (d)(7)(D).  The Administrative Assessment is what makes the MLC different from other PROs or CMOs where members bear their own cost of participation.  The Administrative Assessment is to cover the entire cost of creating the musical works database, not just The MLC’s startup or overhead costs.  If nothing else, another way to treat these out of pocket costs is as a contribution to the operating costs of The MLC by songwriters and copyright owners that should be offset against future Administrative Assessments.

[5] 17 U.S.C. § 115 (e)(6).

[6] Order Granting Participants’ Joint Motion to Adopt Proposed Regulations, In re Determination and Allocation of Initial Administrative Assessment to Fund Mechanical Licensing Collective (U.S. Copyright Royalty Judges Docket No. 19-CRB-0009-AA (Dec. 12, 2019)).

[7] The CRJs included this footnote in their ruling on the administrative assessment (emphasis added):  “The Judges have been advised by their staff that some members of the public sent emails to the Copyright Royalty Board seeking to comment on the proposed settlement agreement. Neither the Copyright Act, nor the regulations adopted thereunder, provide for submission or consideration of comments on a proposed settlement by non-participants in an administrative assessment proceeding. Consequently, as a matter of law, the Judges could not, and did not, consider these ex parte communications in deciding whether to approve the proposed settlement. Additionally, the Judges’ non-consideration of these ex parte communications does not: (i) imply any opinion by the Judges as to the substantive merits of any statements contained in such communications; or (ii) reflect any inability of the Judges to question, [on their own motion without a filing from a participant] whether good cause exists to adopt a settlement and to then utilize all express or reasonably implied statutory authority granted to them to make a determination as to the existence…of good cause [to reject the settlement now or in the future].”   Order Granting Participants’ Joint Motion to Adopt Proposed Regulations, In re Determination and Allocation of Initial Administrative Assessment to Fund Mechanical Licensing Collective (U.S. Copyright Royalty Judges Docket No. 19-CRB-0009-AA (Dec. 12, 2019) n.1 (emphasis added)).

[8] There is a simple solution to determining these costs to songwriters and copyright owners.  The Copyright Office could designate several metadata companies who could compete to handle the various steps of creating and exporting metadata to The MLC, such as in the CWR format, for example North Music Group and Crunch Digital have such tools.  To avoid picking winners and losers and to preserve competition, the Office could alternatively establish a benchmark of quality control or some other criteria for becoming an approved company.  The costs charged would likely vary depending on the size of the catalog, but The MLC need only pay the invoice of these companies which would be included in the Administrative Assessment.  Obviously, the entity performing such work should be independent of The MLC, the DLC or any of its members, or any of their respective vendors.  This would, of course, introduce the concept of competition into the monopoly which may interest no one but might benefit everyone.

[9] See H. Rep. 115-651 (115th Cong. 2nd Sess. April 25, 2018) at 6 (hereafter “House Report”); S. Rep. 115-339 (115th Cong. 2ndSess. Sept. 17, 2018) at 5 (together with identical language, hereafter “legislative history”) (“Although there is no guarantee of a continued designation by the collective, the Committee believes that continuity in the collective would be beneficial to copyright owners so long as the entity previously chosen to be the collective has regularly demonstrated its efficient and fair administration of the collective in a manner that respects varying interests and concerns. In contrast, evidence of fraud, waste, or abuse, including the failure to follow the relevant regulations adopted by the Copyright Office, over the prior five years should raise serious concerns within the Copyright Office as to whether that same entity has the administrative capabilities necessary to perform the required functions of the collective.”)

[10] 17 U.S.C. § 115 (d)(3)(B)(ii)(A)(II).

[11] It seems that if an incumbent MLC that was not redesignated and continued to operate, it would almost unavoidably compete with the newly designated MLC but with a substantial leg up.  I realize there have been some statements made about The MLC taking on work beyond the blanket license, such as voluntary licenses.  That additional work might require additional investment, or a sharing of the total collective costs by third parties.  I have not addressed that allocation as I for one would like to see The MLC stick to their knitting and succeed at the job they are obligated to do, and, frankly, paid to do, before worrying about expanding into profitable roles for the non-profit corporation.   It does seem that if The MLC is not redesignated, there would not be much for them to do once they transfer the public’s assets to the new MLC.

Should the Copyright Office’s Best Practices Shine Sunlight on the Unmatched?

[This post first appeared in the MusicTechPolicy Monthly newsletter.  Become an email follower of this blog to get your copy.]

We’ve all heard that the digital music services are sitting on a pile of cash in unmatched statutory mechanical royalties also known as the “black box”.  No one knows how much because Title I of the Music Modernization Act does not require them to disclose the unmatched sums being held as of the enactment date (October 11, 2018–a year ago), much less a bring down of the current amount.  And unsurprisingly, no service has voluntarily disclosed how much they are holding.

One may ask, why can’t you just look up on the financial statements of at least the public companies how much they are accruing for their share of the black box?  Good luck with that.

The monies owed to the unmatched “known unknowns” is probably the number one question the services don’t ask their third party reporting agents.  And because of the well known agency principle that “notice of a fact that an agent knows or has reason to know is imputed to the principal if knowledge of the fact is material to the agent’s duties to the principal,” these services likely know as a matter of law how much is in their principals’ respective black boxes or at least what they couldn’t match.  (Restatement (Third) of Agency Sec. 5.03.)

Fortunately, the Copyright Office is tasked with establishing best practices for distributing these unmatched black box monies through regulations to implement these and other provisions of the Music Modernization Act, such as the late fee for non-compliant services.

The Copyright Office has also announced the “kick off” of its study of unclaimed royalties study to be held in Washington, DC on December 6.  This will be great for Washington area songwriters, as well as convenient for the lobbyists and lawyers, but everyone else will have to wait for the transcript and video which unfortunately (and perhaps incredibly) will not be live streamed.  Even so, these pending regulations and the upcoming mandated study on matching are the best chance songwriters have had for a generation to get a straight count on unmatched mechanicals.

There are two currently existing standards that the Copyright Office can reference for examples of industry best practices-the SoundExchange unclaimed royalty search for new members and the Lowery-Ferrick Spotify class action Songclaims portal powered by Crunch Digital.  It seems inescapable that these claiming standards should be guideposts for both the Copyright Office and the Copyright Royalty Judges.

Having such clear cut standards–already operational so not theoretical–is fortunate because it seems obvious that the Congress is both concerned with the black box distributions not being gamed and also intends to exercise its statutory authority to retain oversight over the Mechanical Licensing Collective’s operations.  In fact, Senator Grassley specifically stated in his questions for the record following the Copyright Office oversight hearing that:

The success of the Music Modernization Act (MMA) will depend, to a large extent, on the effective and efficient operation of the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC). The MMA included provisions to ensure that there was robust ongoing oversight of the MLC by both the Copyright Office and Congress, and that the new MLC would be accountable to the stakeholders.”

This is in addition to the oversight role of the Copyright Royalty Judges with respect to the Administrative Assessment and at least budgetary aspects of the MLC’s operations that inevitably will turn the quantitative into the qualitative.

During her July 30 testimony at the Copyright Office oversight hearing of the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Register of Copyrights Karyn Temple was peppered with questions about the black box from Members of the Committee, including Representatives Ted Deutch, Sheila Jackson-Lee and Chairman Jerry Nadler.

These months after the hearing, the gravamen of the Committee’s questions were crystalized in yet another copyright infringement suit brought against Spotify, this time by Eminem’s publishers.  The key theory of the suit is that Spotify is out of compliance with the conditions for the new safe harbor for copyright infringers that is one of the central themes of the MMA.  The Copyright Office can use the complaint as another guidepost for best practices to be compassed by their new regulations.

As drafted, Title I is an invitation for litigation, so it should be no surprise that the independent publishing community stepped forward to sue as that was the only way to find out what was going on behind the curtain.  However, as Senator Grassley emphasized, Congress charged the Copyright Office to establish regulations to implement Title I and gave the Copyright Royalty Judges a defacto oversight role through their approval of the MLC’s budget.

  1. Copyright Office Regulations

The Copyright Office is in the process of drafting regulations for a number of areas in Title I.  The Copyright Office therefore is in a unique position to avoid a maelstrom of litigation by adopting regulations that shine light on the unmatched, recognize industry practices by SoundExchange and Crunch Digital, and accomplish simple goals.  This is not hard.

Regulations should require iterative public disclosure to accompany the iterative matching  required by Title I.  Remember-many of these services are the biggest, smartest and richest companies in the history of commerce.  They know something about these systems as they all have to one degree or another developed significant in-house expertise.

However, it is crucial to have the unmatched actually administered by an unrelated and trusted infomediary.  This could be done by repurposing existing searchable databases for unclaimed funds while simultaneously disclosing to the public the amounts owed for each song.

Balance the Checkbook:  Immediate Public Release of Trial Balance and Monthly Updates of Unmatched

Each service currently participating in the Initial Administrative Assessment proceeding before the Copyright Royalty Judges should disclose an aggregate trial balance of the total sums they are holding in their respective unmatched accounts.  This total number should be made public as well as the methodology used to calculate it.  Nothing should or needs to be redacted.

The services should update that initial disclosure on a monthly basis.  The monthly calculation should show the month’s starting balance of unmatched royalties, how much was paid out during the month, how much was added during the month, and the remaining balance at the end of the month.  This simple calculation would allow songwriters to know what monies were being held with no intermediaries.  It’s as simple as balancing a checkbook.

Unmatched Lookup

If the services know the total sums, they should also be able to disclose the sound recording titles at least, if not the artist names, ISRCs, other metadata for the recordings of the songs that comprise the totals.  These services should be able to provide a simple web-based look-up so that songwriters could know if their songs are included in a service’s unmatched accrual.

Cost Reimbursement

It is becoming increasingly obvious to independent publishers that there will be significant resources and costs required to deliver their data to the MLC and claim their unmatched.   Those transaction costs of delivering data to the MLC-without which the imagined global rights database would not be functional enough to distribute the black box effectively-are incremental to publishers who have been doing business prior to the MMA and the MLC.

These incremental costs are easily identifiable and should be invoiced to the MLC by rights owners to be included in the next administrative assessment and reimbursed by the services.

Future Licensees

Any future licensee (blanket or nonblanket) should also be required to comply with these obligations and disclosures.

2.  Role of the Copyright Royalty Judges

The Copyright Royalty Judges are currently conducting a proceeding to establish the initial “administrative assessment” for the MLC.  The rules of the proceeding require the MLC and the Digital Licensee Coordinator to attempt to reach a voluntary agreement on the amount of the assessment.  If they fail, the CRJs will determine it for them.  The voluntary negotiation is divided into two periods: July 8 to September 6, and then September 7 to January 28.

The parties have failed to reach an agreement in the first period already, so a very basic assessment of probabilities means there’s less than a 50% chance they will agree during the second period.  If they fail to reach an agreement by February 17th, the CRJs will commence a hearing to reach the decision for them.  (One could argue that the likelihood of a voluntary agreement increases with the passing of time, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at this point-it seems to be going the opposite direction.)

Remember-the MLC is supposed to have their imagined global rights database up and running and be fully operational and able to render statements shortly after January 1, 2021, or a little over 14 months from now.  At this point, it seems that there is a greater than 50% probability that Congress will have to amend the MMA to extend the deadline.  Presumably something has happened in the last year to advance the ball.

Crucially, there is an inextricable link between the amount of the administrative assessment and what the MLC intends to do with the money.  Two of those functions will be (1) the MLC’s own efforts at matching whatever is unmatched when the Digital Licensee Coordinator delivers the unmatched accounts (and presumably transaction logs) from the services to the MLC after January 1, 2021, and (2) ingesting data for the imagined global rights database.

Unmatched Best Practices and Disclosures

The CRJs should take a very close look at both the startup and the operating budget for the MLC as well as the underlying assumptions, processes and vendors for those functions to take on the U.S. accounting burden for the entire world.  It should be obvious that the services have a great deal of experience in licensing copyrights and operating royalty systems.

The CRJs should also consider whether they have the authority to address the nexus between the best practices to be adopted by those seeking to rely on the retroactive safe harbor, payments of the newly matched prior to 1/1/21 and public reporting of both accrued unmatched royalties and claiming before and after 1/1/21.  I think they do and they probably have an obligation to do so that is at least as great as the obligation on the Copyright Office.<

Sufficiency of Funding and Sufficiency of Allocation

As Senator Grassley has asked, the CRJs need to address what happens if the process fails to hit the deadlines as part of their determination of the administrative assessment.  Each passing day makes it more likely that the entire procedure will grind to a halt before statements can be rendered.

This concerns both the DLC funding the MLC sufficiently, but it also depends on the MLC allocating those sums appropriately across its operations–and the quantitative implies the qualitative.  Moreover, the CRJs need to fashion a procedure for relief that can be taken up inexpensively by any copyright owner that has a good faith belief they have simply not been accounted to. An example would be someone who was being paid under a statutory license (NOI or modified compulsory) prior to January 1, 2021 whose statements then drop to zero thereafter or who simply receive no statements at all.

While the Register said in response to Rep. Deutch during the Copyright Office oversight hearing that both MLC and AMLC had agreed with the Copyright Office interpretation that unclaimed funds are not to be distributed before 2023, the MLC’s actual statement on the issue is more nuanced.  The judges need to take this into account and leave nothing to the imagination in their determination.

3.  Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant

As Mr. Justice Brandeis taught us in Other People’s Money-And How Bankers Use It,“sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.”

Songwriters are in need of both.

New Copyright Office Regulations Regarding Pre-72 Recordings

Title II of the Music Modernization Act (“MMA”), (also known by its own bill title the Classics Protection and Access Act or the “CLASSICS Act) is self-executing legislation that gives certain federal copyright protections to recordings released prior to February 15, 1972.  One of the new protections is the right to recover the customary statutory damages for infringements of those pre-72 recordings available to copyright owners in the normal course.

However, in order to be eligible to recover statutory damages, copyright owners of pre-72 recordings must file Excel spreadsheets of schedules listing their pre-1972 recordings and contact information with the U.S. Copyright Office to be indexed by the Copyright Office into the Office’s public records.  This formality is in lieu of filing the customary copyright registrations.  Statutory damages are only available for infringements occurring more than 90 days after indexing.   The index is available at https://www.copyright.gov/music-modernization/pre1972-soundrecordings/search-soundrecordings.html.

In addition to imposing this formality on copyright owners, the MMA creates a new safe harbor for infringers.  That safe harbor was just coincidentally added at the insistence of Senator Ron Wyden under threat of a Senate hold on the entire bill.  If the infringer is making a noncommercial use of a sound recording that is not being commercially exploited, statutory damages are not available provided that the infringer has made a ‘‘good faith, reasonable search for’’ the infringed work in the indexed schedules before determining that the recording is not being commercially exploited.

The MMA creates an additional and separate safe harbor for entities that were transmitting pre-72 recordings at the time the MMA was enacted.  Rights owners must provide specific notice to such entities before pursuing remedies against them.  In order to provide such notice, that transmitting entity must register their contact information with the Copyright Office within 180 days from enactment (which expired April 9, 2019) (available at https://www.copyright.gov/music-modernization/pre1972-soundrecordings/notices-contact-information.html).

For those reading along at home, the Final Rule is found in 37 C.F.R. §201.35 (available at https://www.copyright.gov/title37/201/37cfr201-35.html) and was published at 84 Fed. Reg. 10679 (March 22, 2019) https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-03-22/pdf/2019-05549.pdf.

Big Tech’s Latest Infringement Loophole: Mass Filings of NOIs to Avoid Paying Statutory Royalties (Part 3)

Recap of Part 1 and Part 2

As we saw in parts 1 and 2 of this post, New Boss companies like Google are playing on a loophole in the Copyright Act’s compulsory license for songs to shirk responsibility for song licensing from the songwriters or other copyright owners, get out of paying royalties and stop songwriters from auditing.

Not only have Google targeted long tail titles, but also new releases and songs by ex-US songwriters who are protected by international treaties.  This is exactly the kind of rent seeking behavior by crony capitalists that gives Big Tech a bad name in the music community.

Google are doing this on a grand scale and at great expense, reportedly using “millions” of “address unknown” NOI filings with the Copyright Office that are supposed to be reserved for bona fide situations where the copyright owner cannot be found after a reasonably diligent search.  Amazon is doing the same.

Through a quirk in the law (which needs to be fixed pronto) Google and Amazon are paying astonishing sums in filing fees to send the “address unknown” NOIs to the Copyright Office for songs that have not been registered for U.S. copyright or otherwise recorded with the Copyright Office.  “Address unknown” NOIs are intended to be used when you really can’t find the address of the copyright owner after a diligent search of relevant records, although the Copyright Act limits the search to the public records of the Copyright Office.  That limitation on records to be searched is a legacy echo from the 1909 revision of the Copyright Act which required registration and renewal for copyright to attach in the U.S.

So far, the overwhelming majority of “address unknown” NOIs are filed by Google.  Spot checking the Amazon filings shows that Amazon filed a handful of titles.

Google apparently accomplishes this by manipulating a data dump from the Library of Congress that was never designed for filing mass NOIs and comparing the metadata in the data dump song title to their own list of sound recording titles that they want to exploit on their services.

Moral Hazard Revisited, DMCA Style

If you have a recording you want to use, you need to clear the song.  You take that song title from the recording and look it up in the Library of Congress data dump.  If it’s not there, you file the “address unknown” NOI.  Wash, rinse, repeat 1,000,000 times or more. See how that works?

As if by magic, you don’t have to pay mechanical royalties until the songwriter figures out what you have done by checking the NOI submissions page at the Copyright Office (assuming anyone knows it’s there or knows their song might be listed) and then…does what?

co-nois-1
Note that “1 NOI” means “1 NOI with tens of thousands of songs attached in an Excel file”

This approach is fraught with moral hazard for largely the same reasons that plague the DMCA safe harbor–the party who benefits from avoiding both royalties and copyright infringement liability by sending the “address unknown” NOI is also the party who decides whether they qualify for the “address unknown” NOI.  The Copyright Office clearly lacks the resources to cross check.  Sounds kind of like DMCA notices, right?

The excuse the services  give for this approach is that they can’t find the copyright owner for “long tail” and new releases.

The long tail part you can understand, but of course you have to ask yourself if a title is so obscure that you can’t find the song copyright owner, then why use it at all?  Holding a track off of a service is far more likely to get the songwriter to come forward than sneaking around through the back door.

The New Release Scam Illustrated

It’s with new releases that Google runs the true arbitrage play.  This is the part that makes no sense, particularly for songs written or owned by people with whom Google does repeat business.  By relying on the “address unknown” NOI filings for new releases, even for songs that may be subject to a direct license, Google is using a loophole to appropriate value to themselves that should rightly go to the songwriters.

Let’s take another Sting example.

Sting released the song “50,000”, apparently as a single from his new 57th & 9th LP.  “50,000” is an introspective Sting-style tribute to David Bowie and Prince.  The album release date was September 23, 2016 and the single debuted around September 17.  Google must have gotten the track around the same time as it is listed in Google’s September 16, 2016 mass NOI filing on line 626.

50000-noi

“50,000” is a particularly good example of how bogus Google’s approach is to “address unknown” NOIs.  Google’s basis for filing the NOI on “50,000” apparently is that “50,000” is not included in either a copyright registration or other recording in the public records of the Copyright Office at the moment that Google looked for it.  What this evidently means is that “50,000” wasn’t in the Library of Congress data dump sometime prior to September 16 when Google filed its mass NOI.

It is important to remember that there is no requirement for anyone to register their works or otherwise record their works in order to enjoy the rights of a copyright owner–such as mechanical royalties.  This is true under international copyright law, not just in the U.S., so this quirk in U.S. copyright law is probably illegal and possibly unenforceable  (which is why the “address unknown” NOI filing needs to be amended or eliminated–more about that below).

So simply put–how can you take away rights from a copyright owner based on a registration requirement that the copyright owner is not required to comply with because it is a formality that is actually prohibited by law?  Sound Kafka-esque to you?  It does to me.

In Sting’s case, Google knows who Sting is.  They have other songs by Sting for which they probably sent an NOI.  They may even have a direct license with Sting’s publisher that may actually supersede or be in lieu of a statutory license.  In other words–they very well may have actual knowledge of Sting’s publisher.  Wouldn’t that be a good place to start?

Yet because a new release has not yet shown up in the Copyright Office records, Google sends an NOI and will not be required to pay royalties until–if ever–the song is included in the Library of Congress data dump.  Even though Sting is not required to register the song, Sting’s publisher may decide to register the copyright in order to take advantage of statutory damages and attorneys fees for infringement actions.

Getting a conformed copy of a copyright registration can take months–so for a single or an album, any mechanical royalties from Google under a statutory license during the new release window will never be paid.  And if any direct license does not expressly prohibit including titles in mass NOIs, there’s a good chance no new release will get mechanical royalties from Google.

What Is To Be Done?

So now we know what the problem is, how to stop it?  Not so easy to do.

1. Anticompetitive:  It should not be lost on anyone that the government has created an opportunity for companies with market power to use their leverage to the disadvantage of their competitors as well as songwriters.  It takes considerable capital to pay the filing fees  to the Copyright Office and purchase data from the Library of Congress in order to arbitrage this loophole.

2. Take Down the Recordings:  There are any one of a number of ways that the terms of a typical interactive music service license can be interpreted to allow the sound recording owner to pull recordings by at least current roster artists, especially new releases written by artist/songwriters (including co-writes) who complain to their labels.

3.  Take Down the Songs:  Direct licenses from music publishers presumably have some clause that will allow the publishers to stop mass NOI filings for their catalog, particularly of the type that creates a nonexistent distinction between versions of a song that have been retititled–not by the songwriter or publisher but by the artist or record company because the versions of the recording are different even though the song remains the same.

4.  Counterfeits or Bootlegs (including stream rips):  Statutory licenses are only available for sound recordings distributed under the authority of the copyright owner.  There are a number of NOIs that look suspiciously like bootlegs or counterfeits, some of which may have been stream ripped.  As Google is presumably sending NOIs for YouTube Red or other on-demand service.

5.  Congressional Investigation to Stop the Library of Congress Selling Data for NOIs:  The LOC has no business selling what is obviously incomplete data or misleading data to a user who so obviously is using it for a harmful purpose.  The LOC could stop that immediately if they were so instructed by the Congress, and in any event the Congress should investigate.

6. Use Webform to Update or File Your Address Including Excel File Link:  The Copyright Office has a webform for email contact by the public available here.  You can use this to file your address and link to your catalog in an Excel file (hosted on your website or blog).  Such correspondence is likely subject to FOIA (and therefore part of the public records of the Copyright Office), but you can also state in your webform that you are submitting the information with the intention that it become public and demand that your information be provided to anyone submitting a mass NOI as part of the LOC data dump.

The point that seems to have escaped Google and Amazon is that this loophole will surely be stopped, but what won’t be stopped is the complete lack of moral compass that would drive megacorporations to run roughshod over songwriters that they so aptly demonstrate.