Get Into The Octave-gon With The New MMA

Last week, the White House signed into law the Music Modernization Act (MMA), bringing American copyright law further into the digital age. The MMA offers several key updates to the copyright regime in the United States. A few highlights are as follows.

The MMA creates a blanket licensing scheme by which royalties are paid by streaming services. The new non-profit agency created by the MMA to collect this new royalty is the "mechanical licensing collective." This agency will collect and distribute royalties from digital music providers. This agency will also administer blanket licenses on behalf of all artists and publishers. Streaming services can now deal directly with the agency instead of individual artists. The agency will have a board of directors comprised of 14 voting members; 10 of whom shall be representatives of music publishers and four of whom shall be professional songwriters.