All about copyright, understanding music licensing, and government regulations.
RIAA released its annual list of leading copyright infringement offenders. The Notorious Markets List includes several familiar operations, including continued concerns about stream-ripping and illicit activities within legitimate mobile apps. Continue Reading
Progress continues with the Mechanical Licensing Collective, the organization formed by the Music Modernization Act to administer the new blanket licenses. The MLC has said it will need $37.25 million to build the structure and set its first-year operating budget at $29 million. Continue Reading
Royalties and payments to artists have remained one of the most complex topics with the shift to streaming models. Deezer is trying a new approach to how it makes those payments. The company’s proposed plan is a user-centric payment system that it will begin trialing next year in France. Continue Reading
The National Music Publishers Association is making a new query into how mechanical royalties are calculated at Spotify and Amazon. The trade group sent letters to both businesses seeking information about their application of the three-tier rate formula from the Copyright Royalty Board. Continue Reading
A Chinese regulator is investigating the music industry deals made by Tencent Music Entertainment, according to Bloomberg. The country’s antitrust authority, the State Administration for Market Regulation, will review Tencent’s deals with the three majors as well as other labels. Continue Reading
Spotify has seen its share of lawsuits, and the latest is targeting more than just the streaming service. Eight Mile Style, the publisher representing Eminem and others, has alleged that Spotify infringed on copyrights related to about 250 of the rapper’s songs. The suit also targets the recently passed Music Modernization Act. Continue Reading
Audible has drawn a lawsuit for its upcoming Captions feature. The Captions tool uses machine learning to transcribe the spoken words in Audible recordings. This update sparked a lawsuit from several publishers based on claims that Audible has not acquired the needed licenses to reproduce the content of physical books and ebooks. Continue Reading
A group of streaming services is facing a new patent challenge, the latest in a long line of legal attacks related to vague claims for intellectual property around audio technology. Post Media Systems has filed separate lawsuits against Apple Music, Pandora/Sirius XM, and Google in Illinois. Continue Reading
YouTube is making a change to its Content ID system that may lead to a spike in the number of blocked videos. In a blog post, the video platform announced that it would no longer let rightsholders use its manual claiming tool for monetizing “creator videos with very short or unintentional uses of music.” Continue Reading
The Department of Justice has closed the open comment period for its review of the consent decrees governing ASCAP and BMI. Both of the performing rights organizations have submitted their views on the subject, as have other groups from the music and audio industry. Even though the topic was recently addressed by the DOJ, the sector still has deeply divided interests in how these rules may or may not change. Continue Reading
SoundExchange announced that it is offering a new licensing solution for putting music in podcasts. The organization is collaborating with SourceAudio to create a solution for Podcastmusic.com, making the works of SoundExchange members available for podcast creators to license. Continue Reading
Human review of voice assistant recordings has been a fiery topic of late, and actions are already being taken to improve privacy for their users. Apple announced that it will globally suspend its grading program, while Google has stopped the practice in Europe. Continue Reading