{"id":725,"date":"2016-08-23T16:56:39","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T16:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/?p=725"},"modified":"2018-01-10T19:36:41","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T19:36:41","slug":"usa-doj-ascap-and-bmi-ruling-fractional-licencing-and-public-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/2016\/08\/usa-doj-ascap-and-bmi-ruling-fractional-licencing-and-public-interest.html","title":{"rendered":"USA DOJ ASCAP and BMI ruling \u2013 fractional licencing and public interest"},"content":{"rendered":"

If PROs offer fractional licenses, a music user, before performing any multi-owner work in a PRO\u2019s repertory, would need a license to the fractional interests held by each of the work\u2019s co-owners. A full-work license from a PRO, on the other hand, would provide infringement protection to a music user seeking to perform any work in the repertory of the PRO.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The consent decrees must be read as requiring full-work licensing. ASCAP and BMI can include in their repertories only those songs they can license on such a basis. These songs include works written by a single songwriter who is a member of the PRO; works written by multiple writers, all of whom are members of the PRO; and works written by multiple writers, one or more of whom are members of the PRO and possess the right under the default tenancy in common or pursuant to other arrangements among the songwriters to grant a full-work license.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, nothing in this interpretation<\/a> contradicts copyright law. To the extent allowed by copyright law, co-owners of a song remain free to impose limitations on one another\u2019s ability to license the song. Such an action may, however, make it impossible for ASCAP or BMI \u2013 consistent with the full-work licensing requirement of the antitrust consent decrees \u2013 to include that song in their blanket licenses.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Division has concluded that it would not be in the public interest to permit ASCAP and BMI to offer fractional licenses. It would undermine the traditional role of the ASCAP and BMI licenses in providing protection from unintended copyright infringement liability and immediate access to the works in the organizations\u2019 repertories, which the Division and the courts have viewed as key procompetitive benefits of the PROs preserved by the consent decrees.<\/span><\/p>\n

Allowing fractional licensing would also impair the functioning of the market for public performance licensing and potentially reduce the playing of music. If ASCAP and BMI were permitted to offer fractional licenses, music users seeking to avoid potential infringement liability would need to meticulously track song ownership before playing music. As the experience of ASCAP and BMI themselves shows, this would be no easy task.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, in the context of compensating song owners, ASCAP, BMI, and other PROs must track and rely on song ownership information they possess to determine to whom to distribute funds collected from music users. But even with their years of experience in finding and compensating song owners and their established relationships with music creators, the PROs often do not make distributions until weeks or months after a song is played, and even then do so imperfectly.<\/span><\/p>\n

The difficulties, delays, and imperfections that are tolerated in the context of PRO payments would prove fatal to the businesses of music users, who need to resolve ownership questions before playing music to avoid infringement exposure.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If PROs offer fractional licenses, a music user, before performing any multi-owner work in a PRO\u2019s repertory, would need a license to the fractional interests held by each of the work\u2019s co-owners. A full-work license from a PRO, on the<\/p>\n

Continue readingUSA DOJ ASCAP and BMI ruling \u2013 fractional licencing and public interest<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3,14,5,7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cmo-rules","category-collective-management","category-competition","category-copyright","category-enforcement","category-intellectual-property","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}