This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply. Eriq Gardner, writing for The Hollywood Reporter: As the new year begins, the music industry could be set for an epochal moment. Hopes are running high for the first significant reform of music licensing rules in decades. The coming year may also see Spotify go public. But before any of this happens, the Stockholm, Sweden-based streaming giant must now contend with a massive new copyright lawsuit from Wixen Music Publishing, which administers the song compositions by Tom Petty, Zach De La Rocha and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, Steely Dan’s Donald ***en, Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, David Cassidy, Neil Young, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, Stevie Nicks, and many others. Expand - View Original
Been expecting this lawsuit for a while now (I was involved in the initial class action work against Spotify). It's another hit to the Ferrick/Lowery settlement and more fuel for the NMPA's Music Modernization Act. Interesting times.
Even if there were to be a huge reform, I can't help but assume it'd still only benefit the giant labels and artists, and still be difficult on the smaller, more independent ones. But maybe I'm just being cynical...
Oh no, you're 100% right. The Music Modernization Act massively benefits major publishers -- like those atop the NMPA, the bill's progenitor -- at the expense of smaller/independent ones. They'll get practically no say in the operations of the new entity being created to oversee the royalty distribution, and if they don't know (how) to claim their royalties within three years' time, it gets split up between the major publishers based on market share instead, so there's a huge perverse incentive to keep them in the dark.