On October 11, 2018, the President signed into law the Orrin G. Hatch—Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act, or Music Modernization Act (“MMA”).  The MMA, a compendium of three separate bills introduced during the 115th United States Congress, aims to modernize copyright issues related to digital streaming and other new technology involving music and audio recordings.

Title I, the Musical Works Modernization Act, looks to improve how music licensing and royalties would be paid in consideration of streaming media services.  It does so by creating a blanket license for digital music providers to make permanent downloads, limited downloads, and interactive streams.  Previously licenses could only be obtained on a song-by-song basis.  It also creates a mechanical licensing collective (“MLC”) to administer the blanket license, and makes improvements to royalty rate processing.  The MLC will (a) collect, distribute and audit the royalties generated from licenses for the respective musical works owners; (b) create and maintain a public database that identifies musical works with their owners along with ownership information; (c) provide information to help match musical works with their respective sound recordings; and (d) hold unclaimed royalties for at least 3 years before distributing them on a market share basis to copyright owners.

Title II, the Compensating Legacy Artists for their Songs, Service, and Important Contributions to Society (CLASSICS) Act, establishes that sound recordings before 1972 are covered by copyright until February 15, 2067, with additional language to grandfather in older songs into the public domain at an earlier time.  Under prior US Copyright Law, sound recordings made before February 15, 1972 were not covered under federal copyright law, leaving it up to individual states to provide recording protection.

Title III, the Allocation for Music Producers (AMP) Act, provides that SoundExchange, a non-profit organization established by Congress to distribute royalties on sound recordings, will distribute part of those royalties to “a producer, mixer, or sound engineer who was part of the creative process that created a sound recording.”

The text of the Act may be found at: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5447/text.