ASCAP, BMI Respond to Controversial Department of Justice Songwriter Rulings
By: Michael Dale Jul. 06, 2016
Members of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) say that recent controversial rulings by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) could have a serious negative effect on how songs are written and how songwriters get paid.
ASCAP and BMI are the country's largest performing rights societies (PRO). As explained in an article by Forbes, songwriting and music licensing are strongly regulated by government consent decrees, but many of the policies in place date back over seventy years. Revenue to songwriters has decreased drastically as technology makes music more easily available.
One standard practice is that writers choose which PRO to belong to, and that organization will handle the business of collecting royalties when their work is licensed for use in film, television, digital streams and other media, or played at public events. If collaborators belong to different PROs, the organizations would divide administrative rights.
But the DOJ has now ruled to propose a change, saying that each PRO can license 100% of a song for use, a move that is currently impractical as it would require a PRO to obtain important information about non-members. It could also discourage writers from collaborating with artists who are outside of their own PRO.
The DOJ has also denied requests to give songwriters the right to withdraw their catalogs from digital licensing services, taking away their ability to negotiate fair market rate payments from digital services like Spotify, Soundcloud and Apple Music.
"All of us at ASCAP are deeply disappointed by the DOJ's proposal," says the organization's CEO Elizabeth Matthews in an online letter to members, "especially given that thousands of ASCAP members wrote to the DOJ expressing serious concerns about 100% licensing and how it would impact songwriters' livelihoods and creative freedom. The US Copyright Office and numerous members of Congress voiced their opposition to 100% licensing as well."
"While the DOJ has expressed their views," she continues, "this is not the final outcome of this process. ASCAP strongly disagrees with the DOJ's position, and we are carefully considering all of our options, including potential legislative and legal remedies."
BMI President and CEO Mike O'Neill writes, "We are disappointed with the DOJ's recommendation, which after years of hard work and discussion brings us no closer to much-needed consent decree reform than when we started. Instead, the DOJ chose to address only the issue of 100% licensing, a concept we never raised and one that the marketplace has worked out on its own over the last half-century. We are surprised that the DOJ feels it needs to restructure a world that is efficient into one that we believe won't be. We are also extremely disappointed that the DOJ did not take in to account the nearly 13,000 BMI songwriters who strongly voiced their concerns over a shift to a 100% licensing model and the creative and financial impact it would have on their ability to create music."
"The DOJ realizes that change of this magnitude is not an easy process and it intends to give the PROs at least a year to work through the challenges presented by its proposal," he continues. "We will evaluate all of our options consistent with our core mission to protect the value of music and the creative freedom of our songwriters."
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