US President Donald Trump has officially signed the Music Modernization Act (MMA) into law according to The Verge. It also says that the act had unanimously passed through both the House and Senate before going to the president.
The report also says how are things changing to songwritters and artists:
“What does all this mean? First, songwriters and artists will receive royalties on songs recorded before 1972.”
“Second, the MMA will improve how songwriters are paid by streaming services with a single mechanical licensing database overseen by music publishers and songwriters. The cost of creating and maintaining this database will be paid for by digital streaming services.”
“Third, the act will take unclaimed royalties due to music professionals and provide a consistent legal process to receive them. Previously, these unclaimed royalties were held by digital service providers like Spotify.”
“All of this should also ensure that artists are paid more and have an easier time collecting money they are owed. As part of the MMA, blanket licensing and royalty payments will be more streamlined.”
Meredith Rose from Public Knowledge gave a statement as well:
“It also does a thing which you couldn’t really do with these kinds of licenses before: obtain a blanket license.”
“You can license the whole corpus of musical compositions, and before you [didn’t have] an entity that was allowed to license everything.”
“So if Spotify was starting today they’d be able to jump in and say, ‘Okay, I want all of it,’ write one check, and then just kind of go about their business.”
Recording Industry Association of America president Mitch Glazier stated:
“The Music Modernization Act is now the law of the land, and thousands of songwriters and artists are better for it. The result is a music market better founded on fair competition and fair pay.”
“The enactment of this law demonstrates what music creators and digital services can do when we work together collaboratively to advance a mutually beneficial agenda.”
