Variety: The Music Modernization Act has passed in the House of Representatives unanimously following a vote for passage in the Senate last week. This clears the way for the bill to be sent to President Trump’s desk for signature and with it will come the most sweeping changes to archaic copyright laws.
3 comments:
I actually hadn’t heard about the Music Modernization Act until this article and went ahead and did some digging to see what else I could find about it. This is a really great thing for the music industry and not only does this bill enjoy bipartisan support but is something that both musicians and streaming services such as Spotify and iTunes seem to agree on as well. Getting all those groups to agree on something seems quite thrilling. The basic idea of what the Act provides is a better system to pay artists and producing companies for music on streaming services. It also brings the licensing of these songs to be played on streaming services out of the stone age with all the paper copies in the world, and makes it digital while creating a database of licenses for easier access to both streaming services and artists to keep on top of their content. From further research it looks like there are a few things that aren’t quite right with this bill, but it’s such a huge leap towards the good that most of the industry is quite on board and excited for this to finally be passed. It’s a little hard to imagine that the music industry has been living in the stone age as far as rights for streaming goes, but I’m glad they’re finally getting to join the rest of us in the modern times!
Music licensing laws needed to be updated so I’m glad that this legislation is in effect. Ensuring that artists get compensated for their work is important. I’m curious to know how the bill changed from the Senate to the House since there won’t be a meeting to discuss the changes. Also, I wish this article had talked about the specifics of the bills especially the AMP Act. The AMP Act formalizes the way that producers and engineers get royalties. Since technology is changing, we need to make sure that our laws don’t prevent artists from working or getting compensation for there work. Streaming services like Spotify have changed how people get music and therefore change around how artists get paid should. I’m also surprised that this bill has gone relatively unnoticed because this article describes it as “sweeping changes” and “critical”. I hope that the government is able to keep up with future changes in the music industry, no matter what technology does, and prevent the laws from going out of date again.
Similarly to Jess I hadn’t actually heard anything about this bill until this article so I had to look up what it was all about. I agree that it really does seem overwhelming positive, which is honestly kind of shocking to this. The current administration has repeatedly shown that they are not friends of the arts, but this new law (if signed by the President) will help to ensure that artists are being fairly compensated for their songs. It’s very refreshing for legislation to come through Congress that doesn’t make me fear for my livelihood or my future, as that has definitely not been the case recently. Like they mentioned in the article, legislation around music rights has become severely out of date with the rise of streaming. Hopefully this will help smaller artists as well as larger ones, as they tend to be the ones who rely more heavily on this kind of income.
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