	Introduction

Songwriters are legally entitled to get paid for reproductions and public performances of the notes and lyrics they create (the musical works). Recording artists are entitled to get paid for reproductio ns, distributions, and certain digital performances of the recorded sound of their voices combined with instruments in some sort of medium, such as a digital file, record, or compact disc (the sound recordings). Yet these copyright holders do not have total control over their music. Thus, as a singer who owns the rights to her sound recordings, Ms. The amount Ms. Swift gets paid for both her musical works and her sound recordings depends on market forces, contracts among a variety of private-sector entities, and federal laws governing copyright and competition policy. Congress wrote these laws, by and large, at a time when consumers primarily accessed music via radio broadcasts or physical media, such as sheet music and phonograph records, and when each medium offered consumers a distinct degree of control over which songs they could hear next. With the emergence of music distribution on the internet, Congress updated some copyright laws in the 1990s. The result, as the U.S. The services pay royalties to music publishers/songwriters for the right to reproduce and distribute the musical works and royalties to record labels/artists for the right to reproduce and distribute sound recordings. To address this concern about a potential monopoly, Congress established the first compulsory license in U.S. copyright law. 2. Growth in radio, as well as declining sales in sheet music and other traditional revenue sources for publishers, also prompted action from ASCAP. DOJ Consent Decrees

The dispute between the broadcast stations and the PROs led the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate whether the PROs were violating antitrust laws. As described in " Reproduction and Distribution Licenses (Mechanical Licenses) ," the rates that interactive services pay music publishers are tied to the rates that the services pay record labels for performance rights, which are negotiated in the free market. Prior to that point, several songwriters and publishers filed lawsuits charging Spotify and other online music services with illegally streaming their copyrighted musical works. 5447)

In April 2018, the House of Representatives voted 415-0 to pass H.R. 5447 , the Music Modernization Act, as amended. The bill would create a new nonprofit "mechanical licensing collective," funded by online music services, that would offer and administer broad blanket mechanical licenses for online music services. It also would change the process of suing for infringement of mechanical licenses, the standards used to set royalty rates for musical works used by preexisting subscription services (Music Choice and Muzak) and satellite digital audio services (SiriusXM), and the process by which judges in the federal district court for the Southern District of New York are assigned to oversee cases related to the ASCAP and BMI consent decrees. If a musical works copyright owner filed a lawsuit filed after January 1, 2018, against an online music service that has allegedly engaged in unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a musical work prior to the blanket "license availability date" (defined by the legislation as the next January 1 following the expiration of the two-year period beginning on the enactment date of the Music Modernization Act), the copyright owner could recover only royalties owed under the new system.
Songwriters and recording artists are legally entitled to get paid for (1) reproductions and public performances of the notes and lyrics they create (the musical works), as well as (2) reproductions, distributions, and certain digital performances of the recorded sound of their voices combined with instruments (the sound recordings). The amount they get paid, as well as their control over their music, depends on market forces, contracts among a variety of private-sector entities, and laws governing copyright and competition policy.
Congress first enacted laws governing music licensing in 1909, when music was primarily distributed through physical media such as sheet music and phonograph records. At the time, some Members of Congress expressed concerns that absent a statutory requirement to make musical works widely available, licensees could use exclusive access to musical works to thwart competition. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) expressed similar concerns in the 1940s, when it entered into antitrust consent decrees requiring music publishers to license their musical works to radio broadcast stations.
As technological changes made it possible to reproduce sound recordings on tape cassettes in the late 1960s and in the form of digital computer files in the 1990s, Congress extended exclusive reproduction and performance rights to sound recordings as well. Many of the laws resulted from compromises between those who own the rights to music and those who license those rights from copyright holders. In some cases, the government sets the rates for music licensing, and the rate-setting standards that it uses reflect those compromises among interested parties.
As consumers have purchased fewer albums over the last 20 years, overall spending on music has declined. Nevertheless, as streaming services that incorporate attributes of both radio and physical media have entered the market, consumer spending has increased during the last two years. In 2016, for the first time ever, streaming and other digital music services represented the majority of the recorded music industry's revenues. As these services have proliferated and the number of songs released has increased, the process of ensuring that the various copyright holders are paid for their musical works and their sound recordings has grown more complex. Performers, songwriters, producers, and others have complained that in some cases current copyright laws make it difficult to earn enough money to support their livelihoods and create new music. In addition, several songwriters and publishers have sued music streaming services, claiming that the services have streamed their songs while making little effort to locate and pay the rights holders.
In April 2018, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 415-0 to pass H.R. 5447, the Music Modernization Act, as amended. The bill would, among other things, modify copyright laws related to the process of granting, receiving, and suing for infringement of mechanical licenses, would create a new nonprofit "mechanical licensing collective" through which musical work copyright owners could collect royalties from online music services, and would change the standards used by a federal agency, the Copyright Royalty Board, to set royalty rates for certain statutory music licenses.