Industry Insights: The changes affecting production music in 2018

How will proposed legislation (the MMA) impact you?

“Anytime antiquated rules and regulations get updated it’s for the better,” Goldberg indicated.

“Hard to say, not really sure yet,” said Fondanarosa.

“We fully support the Music Modernization Act and believe it will greatly benefit all stakeholders including songwriters and publishers, as well as the tech companies. The recent BMI court decision to uphold fractional licensing was also a positive development. There is momentum building to reform the outdated ASCAP/BMI consent decrees and when this happens it will very positively impact the industry,” Mendelsohn explained.

“Hopefully by making sure our artists and composers are more properly compensated for the performance of their music! Some recent legislation does not affect us as directly as we control the publishing and masters to any music we license, which would be the same for almost everyone in our industry, but we’re definitely keeping an eye on the Music Modernization Act,” said Arnold.

“The Music Modernization act will serve to assist in paying more free market Performance Royalty rates for music used in production. It will allow more data-driven decisions to be made by rate court judges in determining Performing Rights payouts from ASCAP and BMI. The MMA legislation should benefit music creators, publishers and music users,” notes Hall.