Copyright
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is facing a lawsuit over allegations that it illegally displayed a copyrighted image of Van Halen, the latest of more than 50 such cases filed by veteran rock photographer Neil Zlozower over the past decade.
In a complaint filed Friday in Ohio federal court, attorneys for the litigious photog say the Rock Hall never paid to license Zlozower’s image – a black-and-white photo of late-70’s Van Halen in the recording studio — before blowing it up into an eight-foot-tall display in the Cleveland museum.
In his lawsuit, Zlozower says that an operation like the Hall, which is full of copyrighted images and sound recordings, ought to have known better.
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“Defendant is a sophisticated company which owns a comprehensive portfolio of physical and digital platforms and has advanced operational and strategic expertise in an industry where copyright is prevalent,” his lawyers write. “Defendant’s staff have significant experience in copyright matters and are familiar with specific practices including the need to ensure that all of the works used in their exhibits have been properly licensed.”
A spokesman for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame did not immediately return a request for comment.
The Rock Hall is just the latest company to face a lawsuit from Zlozower, who also snapped images of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen over a decades-long career. Since 2016, court records show he’s filed more than 57 copyright lawsuits against a wide range of defendants, demanding monetary damages over the alleged unauthorized use of his photographs.
He’s twice sued Universal Music Group, once over an image of Elvis Costello and another time over a photo of Guns N’ Roses, and sued Warner Music Group this summer over an image of Tom Petty. A different case targeted Ticketmaster, accusing the Live Nation unit of using an image of Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde. In 2016, Zlozower sued Mötley Crüe itself for using images he had snapped of Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee and other band members during their 1980s heyday.
In his new case against the Rock Hall, Zlozower’s attorneys say the museum made an “exact copy of a critical portion of plaintiff’s original image” for the exhibit, which they say “did not include any photo credit or mentions as to the source of the image.”
“The photograph was willfully and volitionally copied and displayed by defendant without license or permission, thereby infringing on plaintiff’s copyrights in and to the photograph,” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit is seeking an award of so-called statutory damages – which can potentially reach as high as $150,000 per work infringed if Zlozower can prove that the museum intentionally infringed his copyrights.
Ice Spice has reached an agreement to end a copyright lawsuit over allegations that her recent hit “In Ha Mood” was copied from a Brooklyn rapper’s earlier track.
The case, filed earlier this year by a rapper named D.Chamberz (Duval Chamberlain), claimed that Ice Spice’s song – which spent 16 weeks on the Hot 100 in 2023 – was “strikingly similar” to his own 2021 track “In That Mood.”
But in a motion filed in federal court Friday, attorneys for both sides said they had agreed to resolve the lawsuit. Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed in court filings, and neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
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Released early last year following Ice Spice’s 2022 breakout, “In Ha Mood” reached No. 58 on the Hot 100 and No. 18 on the US Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart. It was later included on her debut EP Like..?, and she performed the song during her October appearance as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live.
In a lawsuit filed in January, D.Chamberz claimed that the two songs share so many similarities that the overlaps “cannot be purely coincidental.” He said the similar elements “go [to] the core of each work,” and are so obvious that they’ve already been spotted by listeners.
“By every method of analysis, ‘In Ha Mood’ is a forgery,” D.Chamberz’s attorneys wrote at the time. “Any proper comparative analysis of the beat, lyrics, hook, rhythmic structure, metrical placement, and narrative context will demonstrate that ‘In Ha Mood’ was copied.”
The lawsuit claimed the earlier song received “significant airplay” on New York City radio stations, including Hot 97 and Power 105.1, giving Ice Spice and others behind her track a chance to hear it.
In addition to naming Ice Spice (Isis Naija Gaston) as a defendant, the lawsuit also names her frequent producer, RiotUSA (Ephrem Lopez, Jr.), as well as Universal Music Group, Capitol Records and 10K Projects.
In April, the defendants formally denied the lawsuit’s allegations, but the case remained in the earliest stages when Friday’s agreement was reached.
Decades after Nelly released his chart-topping breakout Country Grammar, he’s facing a new lawsuit over the album from his St. Lunatics groupmates – who claim that the star cut them out of the credits and the royalty payments.
In a complaint filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, attorneys for the St. Lunatics allege that Nelly (Cornell Haynes) repeatedly “manipulated” them into falsely thinking they’d be paid for their work on the 2000 album, which spent five weeks atop the Billboard 200.
“Every time plaintiffs confronted defendant Haynes [he] would assure them as ‘friends’ he would never prevent them from receiving the financial success they were entitled to,” the lawsuit reads. “Unfortunately, plaintiffs, reasonably believing that their friend and former band member would never steal credit for writing the original compositions, did not initially pursue any legal remedies.”
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The case was filed by St. Lunatics members Ali (Ali Jones), Murphy Lee (Tohri Harper), Kyjuan (Robert Kyjuan) and City Spud (Lavell Webb). Slo Down (Corey Edwards), another former member of the group, is not named as a plaintiff.
A spokesperson for Nelly did not immediately return a request for comment.
A group of high school friends from St. Louis, the St. Lunatics rose to prominence in the late 1990s with “Gimme What U Got”, and their debut album Free City – released a year after Country Grammar – was a hit of its own, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
The various members of the group are repeatedly listed as co-writers in the public credits for numerous songs on Country Grammar, most notably with City Spud credited as a co-writer and co-performer on the single “Ride Wit Me,” which spent 29 weeks on the Hot 100.
In the new lawsuit, the group members say they were involved with more songs than they were credited for, including “Steal the Show,” “Thicky Thick Girl,” “Batter Up,” and “Wrap Sumden.” The most notable is the title track “Country Grammar,” which reached No. 7 on the singles chart; in public databases, the song only credits Nelly and producer Jason Epperson.
The groupmates say that during and after the Country Grammar recording session, Nelly “privately and publicly acknowledged that plaintiffs were the lyric writers” and “promised to ensure that plaintiffs received writing and publishing credit.” But decades later, in 2020, the St. Lunatics members say they “discovered that defendant Haynes had been lying to them the entire time.”
“Despite repeatedly promising plaintiffs that they would receive full recognition and credit… it eventually became clear that defendant Haynes had no intention of providing the plaintiffs with any such credit or recognition,” the group’s attorneys write.
When the group members realized Nelly had “failed to provide proper credit and publishing income,” they say they hired an attorney who reached out to Universal Music Publishing Group. The letter was relayed to Nelly’s attorneys, who they say “expressly repudiated” their claims to credit in 2021.
“Plaintiffs had no alternative but to commence legal proceedings against Defendants,” the lawsuit reads.
The case could face an important procedural hurdle. Although copyright infringement lawsuits can be filed decades after an infringing song is released, disputes over copyright ownership face a stricter three-year statute of limitations.
The current lawsuit is styled as an infringement case, with the St. Lunatics alleging that Nelly has unfairly used their songs without permission. But the first argument from Nelly’s attorneys will likely be that the case is really a dispute over ownership – and thus was filed years too late.
An attorney for the plaintiffs did not immediately return a request for comment.
Ye (formerly Kanye West) has reached a settlement in a copyright lawsuit that accused him of using an uncleared sample from the pioneering rap group Boogie Down Productions in his song “Life of the Party.”
In court documents filed Monday, attorneys for both sides agreed that Ye should be dismissed from the case, with each side to pay their own legal bills. No other terms of the agreement were disclosed publicly, and neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
The Boogie Down lawsuit was one of more than a dozen such cases that have been filed against Ye over claims of unlicensed sampling or interpolating during his prolific career. The controversial rapper has faced nine such infringement cases since 2019 alone, including a high-profile battle with estate of Donna Summer that settled earlier this year.
Filed in November 2022, the current lawsuit was lodged by Phase One Network, the group that owns Boogie Down’s copyrights, over allegations that Ye had used incorporated key aspects from the 1986 song “South Bronx” into “Life of the Party,” which was released on his 2021album Donda.
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Echoing several other sampling lawsuits against Ye, Phase One claimed that the rapper’s representatives had reached out to legally clear the use of the Boogie Down song – but then released it anyway when a deal was never struck.
“The communications confirmed that ‘South Bronx’ had been incorporated into the infringing track even though West had yet to obtain such license,” Phase One’s lawyers wrote. “Despite the fact that final clearance for use of ‘South Bronx’ in the infringing track was never authorized, the infringing track was nevertheless reproduced, sold, distributed, publicly performed and exploited.”
Last summer, attorneys for Ye fought back with an unusual argument: That Boogie Down founder KRS-One had publicly promised all future rappers that “you will not get sued” over sampling the group’s catalog. They cited a 2006 documentary called The Art of 16 Bars, in which KRS-One said “I give to all MCs my entire catalogue.”
Phase One later called that a “bizarre argument,” noting that, when the documentary was made, KRS-One didn’t actually own the music he was claiming to place in the public domain: “Movants cite to no law to support such a theory. KRS-One also could not have placed the Work in the public domain as he did not own it.”
Following Monday’s agreement, Ye and his Yeezy LLC will be dropped from the lawsuit but the case will continue against other several defendants, including the company behind the Stem Player platform on which the song was allegedly released.
With claims of uncleared samples back in the news, Billboard dug up every case that’s been filed against the controversial rapper. Spoiler alert: It’s a lot.
The three major record labels are suing Verizon over allegations that the telecom giant effectively encouraged its internet subscribers to steal copyrighted music on a “staggering” scale.
In a lawsuit filed Friday in Manhattan federal court, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment claim that Verizon has “buried its head in the sand” in the face of repeated warnings about piracy on its network, fostering a “safe haven” for illegal activity.
“While Verizon is famous for its ‘Can you hear me now?’ advertising campaign, it has intentionally chosen not to listen to complaints from copyright owners,” lawyers for the labels wrote. “Rather than taking any steps to address its customers’ illegal use of its network, Verizon deliberately chose to ignore plaintiffs’ notices, willfully blinding itself to that information and prioritizing its own profits over its legal obligations.”
The financial stakes for Verizon could be very large. The labels accuse the company of infringing more than 17,000 songs; if a judge awarded the maximum penalty for each of those songs, the damages could total more than $2.5 billion. The allegedly-infringed tracks include music by The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Katy Perry and hundreds of other top artists.
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The new case is the latest in a long line of major lawsuits aimed at forcing internet service providers to take more proactive steps to eliminate piracy on their networks. In one such case, the labels initially won a shocking $1 billion verdict against Cox Communications.
For years, internet service providers typically weren’t held liable for individual infringements by their millions of users, thanks to a “safe harbor” provided by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But starting in the mid-2010s, music companies began arguing that ISPs had forfeited that immunity by ignoring the DMCA’s requirement that they terminate “repeat infringers” from their network.
Beginning with a landmark case filed by BMG against Cox, those arguments have repeatedly proved successful. Major labels have filed similar cases against Cox, Charter, RCN and other ISPs in courts around the country, often winning huge judgments against them.
In the new lawsuit filed Friday, the labels turned those same arguments against Verizon. The company has allegedly received “hundreds of thousands” of notices of illegal file-sharing by specific subscribers, the lawsuit says, but “deliberately refused to take action” so that it could “continue to collect millions of dollars from them.”
“Verizon’s motivation for refusing to terminate or suspend the accounts of blatant infringing subscribers is simple: Verizon valued corporate profits over its legal responsibilities,” attorneys for the labels wrote.
Back in 2019, a federal jury in Virginia ordered Cox to pay $1 billion in a similar case, awarding the labels more than $99,000 for each of 10,017 separate songs. Though that verdict was later vacated on appeal, Cox could still face a similarly large fine when the total is recalculated in a future trial.
In technical terms, the lawsuit accuses Verizon of contributory infringement (meaning the company induced or authorized its customers to pirate the music) and vicarious infringement (meaning the ISP profited from illegal downloading it could have stopped).
A rep for Verizon did not return a request for comment on Monday.
The U.S. Copyright Office has finalized a new rule aimed at ensuring that songwriters who invoke termination rights to regain control of their music will actually start getting paid streaming royalties after they do so.
The provision, issued on Tuesday, will overturn what the Copyright Office called an “erroneous” earlier policy by the Mechanical Licensing Collective, which critics feared would have kept sending money from streamers like Spotify to former owners in perpetuity, long after a songwriter took back ownership.
Proposals to force the MLC to change that approach, first reported by Billboard in 2022, were supported by a slew of songwriters like Don Henley, Sheryl Crow and Sting, who feared they would be “deprived of the rights afforded to them by copyright law.” The effort was led by groups including the Music Artists Coalition, Songwriters of North America, Black Music Action Coalition and the Recording Academy.
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In a statement on Tuesday, Music Artists Coalition board member Jordan Bromley called the Copyright Office’s new termination rule a “landmark victory for songwriters.”
“This decision not only ensures fair compensation for songwriters who reclaim their rights, but also sets a precedent that strengthens the very foundation of copyright law in the digital age,” Bromley said. “It’s a clear message that in the evolving landscape of music streaming and licensing, the rights of creators must be protected and respected.”
A spokeswoman for the MLC did not return a request for comment.
HOW IT WORKS
The new rule issued Tuesday addresses complex questions about how MLC’s blanket license for streaming royalties, created by the Music Modernization Act in 2018, interacts with so-called termination rights – a federal provision that empowers authors to reclaim the rights to their copyrighted works decades after selling them away.
Though a powerful tool for songwriters, termination comes with an important exception. Even though a publisher must hand back the rights to the original song, they’re entitled to keep selling any existing “derivative works” they created when they owned it. Those continue to be fair game, and any fees under existing licenses keep flowing back to their old publisher.
That exception makes practical sense: It would be unfair to let a terminating songwriter suddenly send cease-and-desists over a famous sample that had been legal when it was initially cleared, or sue over a movie that featured the song under a synch license. But it also creates difficult ambiguity for the MLC and the blanket license.
Say a songwriter terminates their publisher’s control of their music. The writer is now the owner of those songs — that’s easy to figure out. But by paying the MLC for access to the blanket license, Spotify arguably already has an existing license in place with the old publisher. So, isn’t the copy of the song on Spotify an existing derivative work? And shouldn’t the royalties from it continue to go to the old publisher under that license?
Under a dispute resolution policy issued by MLC in 2021, that appeared to be the case. The rules seemed to choose who to pay based on when a song was uploaded to a digital streamer’s servers; if it was uploaded prior to when a songwriter invoked their termination right, the royalties would keep going to the old owner — seemingly forever.
The MLC’s approach was not intended as a scheme to hurt songwriters. According to the Copyright Office, the group saw it as a “middle ground,” aimed at preventing drawn-out disputes that would lock up royalty payments “to the disadvantage of both songwriters and publishers.” But advocates argued that it would undermine the very purpose of termination rights, which were created to level the playing field for small creators who sold their works away to powerful companies.
In October 2022, the Copyright Office largely agreed. In a proposed new rule, the agency said the MLC’s policy was based on an “erroneous understanding and application of current law.” Ordering the group to “immediately repeal its policy in full,” the proposal said that when a songwriter gets their rights back, they should obviously start getting the royalties, too.
Nearly two years later, that rule was finalized on Tuesday. The final version retains most of the core features of the original proposal, though certain elements have been changed to address “practical and administrative concerns” raised by industry groups. In particular, the agency said it had modified how the rule identifies the payee to whom the MLC must distribute royalties, and pushed back deadlines to give the MLC more time to “update its processes and systems.”
QUIETING THE CRITICS
Over the past two years, the proposed rule underwent a so-called public comment period, during which it was met with both support and criticism from outside groups. According to Tuesday’s final rule, one of the “principal critics” was the National Music Publisher’s Association, which argued that the MLC’s original approach had been supported by historical precedent in industry practice.
In the new rule, the Copyright Office said it was “not persuaded by NMPA’s argument” on that issue.
“We do not dispute NMPA’s assertion that certain publishers may have adopted a different approach to termination, but this approach is not supported by the law in the context of the blanket license,” the agency wrote. “The Office is not adopting a new position, or changing the law as it relates to termination or the exception. Nor are we contending that the MMA or blanket license altered the law as it relates to the exception. The Office is merely stating what the law is and has always been.”
The Copyright Office also rejected separate arguments from the NMPA that the new rule was an impermissible “retroactive” rule, or even an unconstitutional “taking” that violated the Fifth Amendment. In doing so, the agency said that “these royalties always belonged to the post-termination copyright owner” and that the new rule simply “implements the law as it already existed.”
Despite earlier disagreements, NMPA President & CEO David Israelite celebrated the final enactment of the rule in a statement Tuesday, saying the group was pleased with a policy that “ensures songwriters are properly and expediently paid post termination.”
“Having clear guidance on this issue will make the MLC and larger industry even more efficient as it gives a clear roadmap to those who have decided to reclaim their copyrights,” Israelite said. “The songwriter groups deserve much credit for working with the Copyright Office and music publishers to push for this decision.”
A spokesperson for the NMPA declined to comment the Copyright Office’s decisions on the group’s specific objections.
Notably, the new rule will not just change the MLC’s approach going forward, but also require “corrective royalty adjustments” to address any money that was paid improperly under the old policy. But such payments are likely to be relatively small: In filings, the MLC has said that it voluntarily suspended the old termination policy while the case played out at the Copyright Office, and that it expects any corrections to total “less than $2 million.”
You can read the entire new rule here.
A federal judge says Megan Thee Stallion didn’t copy her chart-topping “Savage” from an earlier song, ruling there’s no evidence the superstar has ever even heard the little-known instrumental track.
In a decision issued Tuesday (June 18), Judge Katherine Polk Failla dismissed a lawsuit filed last year by producer James A. Greene, who claimed that Megan’s mega-hit infringed the copyrights to his own song “It’s About To Be On.”
Green claimed he had “no doubt” that “Savage” infringed his rights, but Judge Failla ruled that the two songs were clearly different.
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“Plaintiff’s work is an instrumental piece, with little variety in sounds and instruments used throughout,” the judge wrote. “By contrast, ‘Savage’ is a pop song, featuring lyrics as well as a more upbeat tempo. Plaintiff’s work is qualitatively different from ‘Savage,’ and any similarities implicate common, non-copyrightable elements of any song.”
The judge also ruled that the case was flawed for a simpler reason: That it was unlikely Megan and her co-writers had “access” to his song to copy it — a key element in any copyright lawsuit. Green had argued that he passed along CDs in the early 2000s to someone who might have later given them to “Savage” producer J. White Did It.
But Judge Failla said that wasn’t enough: “Plaintiff is unable to allege any chain of events that creates anything more than the ‘bare possibility’ that defendants gained access to plaintiff’s work.”
The judge also ruled that Green’s song was not popular enough that Megan might have heard it on her own: “At best, plaintiff alleges that he undertook his own efforts to distribute the work throughout the music industry to A&R’s, management teams, etc.,” Judge Failla wrote. “Yet such efforts alone fall short of widespread distribution.”
Greene sued Megan (Megan Pete), J. White (Anthony White) and Warner Music Group last year, claiming “Savage” had borrowed material from his “It’s About To Be On,” a three-minute instrumental track he says he released in 1999. He claimed that the two songs shared the same drum pattern and piano note pattern as well as similar siren sounds.
But in Thursday’s ruling, Judge Failla said each of those elements was different in Megan’s song, including the siren sounds.
“In [Green’s song], the siren sound is an atonal chord that appears to be created using a synthesizer,” the judge said. “By contrast, in ‘Savage,’ the alleged siren sound is not a siren at all, but rather is a distorted vocal sample. Put simply, no reasonable listener would discern any similarity.”
Neither side immediately returned a request for comment on Thursday (June 20).
Beyoncé, Sony Music and others are facing a copyright lawsuit over her chart-topping hit “Break My Soul,” filed by a New Orleans group that says she sampled from a Big Easy rapper who had illegally lifted lyrics from their earlier song.
In a complaint filed Wednesday (May 22) in Louisiana federal court, members of Da Showstoppaz accuse Beyoncé (Beyoncé Knowles Carter) of infringing their 2002 song “Release A Wiggle” on “Break My Soul,” which spent two weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022.
Rather than stealing their material directly, the group alleges that Beyoncé infringed their copyrights by legally sampling the 2014 song “Explode” by the New Orleans rapper Big Freedia. That track, they say, illegally borrowed several key lyrics from their song.
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“While Mrs. Carter … and others have received many accolades and substantial profits … Da Showstoppaz’s have received nothing—no acknowledgment, no credit, no remuneration of any kind,” the group’s attorneys wrote, also naming Big Freedia (Freddie Ross) as a defendant.
“Explode” was one of several high-profile samples on “Break My Soul,” which also heavily pulled from Robin S.‘s house song “Show Me Love.” After the release of the song, Big Freedia thanked “Queen Beyoncé” and said she had been “honored to be a part of this special moment.”
At the center of the new dispute is the phrase “release yo wiggle” and several related variants, which Da Showstoppaz call “unique phrases” that they coined in their song. They say Big Freedia — a well-known rapper in New Orleans’ bounce music scene — infringed their copyrights by using similar phrases in “Explode.”
“The infringing phrase ‘release yo’ wiggle’ and several other substantially similar phrases are featured prominently in the song and evenly spread out across Explode’s two-minute and forty-seven second runtime,” the group’s lawyers wrote. “Any reasonable person listening to ‘Release A Wiggle’ and ‘Explode’ would conclude that the songs are substantially similar.”
Such allegations could face long odds in court. Copyright law typically does not protect short, simple phrases, and a court could potentially dismiss the case on the grounds that Big Freedia was free to use such lyrics even if The Showstoppaz used them first.
But the group’s lawyers aren’t concerned, saying they “have a copyright to their unique and distinctive lyrics” that was clearly infringed by Big Freedia: “The coined term and phrase ‘release a/yo wiggle’ has now become closely synonymous with Big Freedia, thereby contributing to Big Freedia’s fame. However, Big Fredia did not compose or write the phrase, and Big Freedia never credited Da Showstoppaz as the source.”
According to the lawsuit, Da Showstoppaz first learned about Big Freedia’s song when they heard “Break My Soul.” They say they notified Beyoncé and others of the alleged infringement infringement last month, but that she has refused to take a license.
Reps for Beyoncé and Sony Music did not immediately return a request for comment on the allegations.
The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) has sent a letter to Judiciary Committee leadership in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, asking for the overhaul of the statutory license in section 115 of the Copyright Act, which “prevents private negotiations in a free market” for mechanical royalty rates for songwriters and music publishers in the U.S.
On May 20, David Israelite, the organization’s president and CEO, teased this announcement in a guest column for Billboard, saying: “soon we will unveil a legislative proposal to permanently fix the power imbalance songwriters face by being subject to a compulsory license for their songs.”
In his new letter, NMPA’s Israelite writes that doing away with the 100-year-old system of government-regulated price setting for songwriter and publisher royalties (specifically, mechanical royalties) and allowing rate negotiations to occur in a free market would prevent songwriters and publishers from being taken advantage of by “Big Tech:” “Those who do operate in a free market, such as record labels, have negotiated protections against bad faith tactics. However, music publishers and songwriters have no such leverage under the [Copyright Royalty Board] to do so.”
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For years, music publishers and songwriters have lamented that they do not get to negotiate for their U.S. mechanical royalty rate privately because of wording in section 115 of the Copyright Act, which places “non dramatic musical works,” like songs, under a compulsory license, dating back to 1909. The rate for that license is determined by a set of Copyright Royalty Board judges, who weigh the interests of the music business against that of tech companies like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and more to determine what they feel is a fair price for music.
Record labels, which work with “sound recording” copyrights, not “musical works,” are able to freely negotiate their rates, as are music publishers and songwriters outside the U.S. Because of the discrepancy between how U.S. music publishers and songwriters are treated compared to others, publishers feel that they are held back from getting the best rates possible.
The letter arrives just a week after music publishers, the NMPA, and the Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) — which collects and distributes mechanical royalties for U.S. publishers and songwriters — waged a war against Spotify for paying a lower U.S. mechanical royalty rate for premium, duo and family plans, starting in March 2024. Spotify believes that the addition of audiobooks to premium, duo and family plans qualifies these tiers as bundles, a type of subscription that pays a lower royalty rate.
For days after this information was first reported, various music organizations made statements against Spotify, often calling its reclassification “cynical” and a “loophole” to pay songwriters less and takes advantage of the settlement made between music publishers, songwriters and streamers to agree on a rate structure for 2023-2027 (known as “Phonorecords IV”), which was approved by the Copyright Royalty Board judges.
In the NMPA’s letter — addressed to Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) — Israelite calls Spotify’s move a “manipulat[ion] [of] the compulsory licensing rules” and the latest in what he feels is the “continued abuse of the statutory system by digital services… [which] has made it clear that additional action by Congress is needed.”
On May 15, the NMPA sent a cease and desist letter to the streamer for hosting lyrics, music videos, and podcast content that contain their copyrighted musical works without a proper license. The next day, on May 16, The MLC joined in, filing a lawsuit against Spotify for “improperly” reclassifying its premium, duo and family plans and trying to get a discount, which would result in what Billboard estimates is a $150 million annualized reduction in U.S. mechanical royalties, compared to what they would have paid if these tiers never changed over.
In his new letter, NMPA’s Israelite proposes a solution for abolishing the current system, saying: “Congress should allow rightsholders the choice to license through the MLC using the statutorily set royalty rates or to withdraw from the MLC and operate in a free market if they meet certain conditions.”
He continues, “if copyright owners chose to withdraw their copyrights from the blanket license, currently administered by the MLC, they would be required to do the following:
Require all rightsholders who exercise this option to provide 6 months’ notice to the Register of Copyrights and the MLC;
Require that the withdrawing rightsholders ensure their musical work copyrights and ownership interests are registered in the MLC’s public database;
Require the MLC to flag those rightsholders and their catalogues as withdrawn from the MLC blanket license and subject to voluntary license negotiations; and
Require copyright holders to maintain with the MLC database current, up-to-date contact information, which would be used to contact for licensing.”
Read the full letter below:
Dear Chair Durbin, Ranking Member Graham, Chairman Jordan, and Ranking Member Nadler:
The Music Modernization Act (MMA) has offered not only songwriters and music publishers, but also digital service providers, unprecedented benefits. However, the bill has amplified the need for corrections to the century-old compulsory license governing their work.
Large, foreign-owned companies, like Spotify, should not enjoy unfair advantages over American songwriters because of outdated federal policy. By making one simple change, Congress can undo a more than 100-year-old mistake in the compulsory license and ensure songwriters and music creators continue to benefit from their creative efforts.
How did we get here? Almost six years ago, members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees came together to pass the MMA, a landmark piece of copyright legislation for the age of digital music streaming. The MMA took important steps forward in improving the compulsory license imposed on songwriters and music publishers by creating the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) to administer a blanket license under Section 115 of the Copyright Act, which is taken by digital music services.
The MLC increased transparency through a public database, furthered licensing efficiency through a central administrator, and improved the process for distributing musical work royalties. However, the benefits did not extend to, or remedy, the ongoing issues faced by rightsholders subject to the government rate-setting process.
The continued abuse of the statutory system by digital services, most recently Spotify, has made clear that additional action by Congress is needed. The royalty rates paid to musical work copyright owners for uses of those works under the Section 115 blanket license are set in a proceeding before the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), within the Library of Congress, once every five years. In these proceedings, music publishers and songwriters must face off against some of the biggest tech companies in the world: Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google, among others to establish rates for the use of musical works.
Because the law prevents private negotiations in a free market, publishers and songwriters have seen ongoing abuse of the statutory system and CRB rate-setting process with little ability for recourse. Most recently, Spotify has found a new way to game the statutory rate system to underpay rightsholders by hundreds of millions in royalties.
In March, Spotify began manipulating the compulsory licensing rules and reclassified its premium subscription music service, along with almost 50 million subscribers, into what it is calling a “bundle.” The benefit to taking this action is, under the compulsory royalty rates, bundles attribute less revenue – and therefore pay less in royalties – to the music than a premium subscription music service. Spotify has taken a part of its music service that was previously offered to consumers for free, audiobooks, and it is now calling audiobooks a bundle with its music service to substantially reduce the musical work royalties owed.
Those who do operate in a free market, such as record labels, have negotiated protections against these bad faith tactics. However, music publishers and songwriters have no such leverage under the CRB to do so.
Fortunately, there are solutions Congress can enact that would preserve the benefits of the MMA and the MLC while providing songwriters and publishers a better chance to compete on a level playing field with Big Tech firms like Spotify. Rather than picking who wins and who loses, Congress should allow rightsholders the choice to license through the MLC using the statutorily set royalty rates or to withdraw from the MLC and operate in a free market if they meet certain conditions.
If copyright owners chose to withdraw their copyrights from the blanket license, currently administered by the MLC, they would be required to do the following:
Require all rightsholders who exercise this option to provide 6 months’ notice to the Register of Copyrights and the MLC;
Require that the withdrawing rightsholders ensure their musical work copyrights and ownership interests are registered in the MLC’s public database;
Require the MLC to flag those rightsholders and their catalogues as withdrawn from the MLC blanket license and subject to voluntary license negotiations; and
Require copyright holders to maintain with the MLC database current, up-to-date contact information, which would be used to contact for licensing.
This would give rightsholders the option to stay within the current compulsory system or to operate within a free market. It would also restore basic principles of fairness to the market by requiring streaming platforms to deal with music makers as partners. Finally, it would provide a needed point of leverage for songwriters and music publishers to negotiate with streamers, like Spotify, who can otherwise use their power to bend government regulations to their advantage. All of this could be accomplished by building on the successful infrastructure created by the MMA and the MLC.”