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http://www.ascap.com/playback/2014/06/a ... gress.aspx


June 24, 2014

Paul Williams to Congress: Modernize the Music Licensing System
Tomorrow ASCAP President and Chairman - and award-winning songwriter- Paul Williams will deliver to Congress a call for music licensing reform

In his testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet, Williams will urge Washington to protect the rights of songwriters and preserve the value of voluntary collective licensing as it considers ways to reform the nation’s music licensing system.

The hearing comes at a critical moment for American songwriters, as the US Copyright Office has undertaken a study of the effectiveness of existing methods of licensing music and the U.S. Department of Justice has opened a review of the Consent Decrees that govern the nation’s two leading performance rights organizations (or PROs), ASCAP and BMI.

Williams will emphasize the benefits of voluntary collective licensing through PROs for music creators, licensees and listeners, but will warn that outdated federal regulations increasingly threaten to undermine the entire system. To prevent that, Williams will outline three specific updates to the 73 year-old Consent Decree, which ASCAP is asking the DOJ to consider:

Allowing ASCAP to accept a partial grant of rights from its members, meaning ASCAP is able to license certain uses while the rights holders handle others directly. Allowing greater flexibility is necessary to hold the system together.
Replacing rate court with a faster, less expensive dispute resolution process.
Permitting ASCAP to offer all the rights in a music composition a licensee needs to operate their business – something that ASCAP’s competitors are already free to do.
Without meaningful regulatory reform, Williams will express serious concerns about the future of American songwriters and the music industry as a whole.

A live stream of Williams’s testimony will be available on the committee website here at 10:00am (EDT) on June 25th.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Thanks for posting this!

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-Chris

about freakin' time is about all I can say at this point. Now hopefully something will actually come from it.

-James

At least it's a first step!

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Hopefully what he is proposing is going in the right direction. It seems to me that's what is being said. If they are proposing to be the US version of PRS then I think it is a step in the right direction.

Here is another article. There are going to be several sides to the story and streaming issues seem to be driving a part of it.

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permali ... al-hearing

Great info. I think this is the part that would apply to Karaoke Producers and us:

He will discuss how ASCAP would like to be able to administer the rights for not just the public performance of a song, but all other aspects: mechanical, synch, print – like other performing rights organizations worldwide can do. The system as it is setup in the US is quite messy and very difficult for anyone attempting to license music for multiple mediums (video, streaming, download, radio). ASCAP would like the ability to be able to be a “one stop shop” for composition rights. This is currently not possible the way the copyright law is written.

James, feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but that would mean you would deal with the ABC's for licensing instead of having to deal with each publisher, Correct?

Different type of lawsuit loss. Against a streaming service.
http://mashable.com/2014/06/25/aereo-loses-2/

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