Music Modernization Act
The Orrin G. Hatch–Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act, or Music Modernization Act or MMA (H.R. 1551, Pub. L. 115–264 (text) (PDF)) is United States legislation signed into law on October 11, 2018 aimed to modernize copyright-related issues for music and audio recordings due to new forms of technology such as digital streaming. It is a consolidation of three separate bills introduced during the 115th United States Congress.
Long title
To modernize copyright law, and for other purposes.
Music Modernization Act
49
17
Lobbying from the recording industry[edit]
On April 1, 2014, Neil Portnow, the President and CEO of The Recording Academy, began calling for the music industry to combine lobbying efforts with the goal of passing new legislation and regulatory reform.[6] The following day he gave a speech to lawmakers at Grammys on the Hill calling for unity legislation. On June 10, 2014, Portnow testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet. On January 8, 2018, representatives from numerous sections of the music industry united to join The Recording Academy's push for comprehensive music reform, including RIAA, NMPA, NSAI, and ASCAP.[7]
Reactions[edit]
The bills in both House and Senate had bipartisan support, as well as strong support from numerous music industry groups representing musicians, producers, and publishers, as well as from digital streaming media services and related industry groups.[10] Digital streaming platforms Apple Music and Spotify had both come under prior separate legal actions for unpaid royalties for streaming music in part due to a lack of a central database with which to track down songwriters and composers, and had even set aside part of their working capital to deal with legal issues in order to offer full music catalogs, in contrast to Amazon.com's music selection.[11][12][13]
There was a last-minute conflict in the Senate, brought up by SESAC and SiriusXM, relating to royalties for pre-1972 sound recordings, but a deal was made between SiriusXM, the National Music Publishers Association and the Recording Industry Association of America which allowed the bill to be passed by the Senate by a unanimous vote, allowing the bill to quickly pass through Congress via "hotlining" before the end of the session.[10]
When the House MMA bill was introduced in December 2017, it included a provision that liabilities for streaming companies would be limited to infractions after January 1, 2018, a clause that remained through the final passed bill. On December 31, 2017, Wixen Music Publishing, representing artists like Tom Petty and Neil Young, filed a lawsuit against Spotify to seek unpaid royalties for their artists' songs, asking for US$1.6 billion in damages. The suit was filed to be able to recover damages for infractions that occurred before the MMA's January 1, 2018 date.[11][12][14] This suit was ultimately settled out of court by December 2018 for an undisclosed sum.[15]
The Internet Archive opposed an earlier version of the bill.[16] After it passed, they used a provision allowing libraries to offer recordings that are not commercially available, to digitize and offer public downloads of some long-playing records that are not commercially available.[17][18]
In 2021, in response to the MMA, the Mechanical Licensing Collective began paying out unmatched mechanical royalties to songwriters and their publishers.
Legal challenges[edit]
One of the first high-profile legal challenges to the MMA was raised in a lawsuit from Eminem's publisher Eight Mile Style against Spotify, asserting that Spotify has allowed Eminem's music to be streamed without paying the proper royalties, as the service lists some of these works under "Copyright control" with no known owner. While the suit's primary complaint is with Spotify, the suit further argued that part of the law, limiting liabilities to those after January 1, 2018, was unconstitutional since it provides no proper compensation for the work that was taken from the publisher, against the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.[14][19]