An Insanely Detailed Discussion About the Music Modernization Act

The Digital Music News Podcast

If you want an even deeper dive, Jeff Price of Audiam (who's being interviewed) compiled a highly detailed review of the Music Modernization Act on Digital Music News. It basically explains everything.

After you hear this podcast + read this guide, you'll hopefully have a far deeper understanding of this bill (and know what to do next).

Also, here's a quick annotation of this podcast, so you can skip around to various parts.

0:00 Intro

1:54 Interview with Jeff Price begins

3:57 What the hell is the Music Modernization Act (and why do we need it)?

6:17 What exactly is a 'streaming service,' and what are the different types of streaming licenses?

8:11 How does the publishing work with Pandora?

11:04 What is a Public Performance?

13:35 What is a 'Reproduction License' (i.e., Mechanical License) - and why is it so important?

27:10 Why does Congress need to get involved?

28:00 Where did the giant problem begin?

30:00 'The recording part was figured out'

31:02 Did Spotify just not know about the licenses they needed to pay?

37:00 'So they put together a solution...' (What the MMA solves + other problems this bill addresses)

40:00 The basic rules of the MMA for streaming music services

41:30 International considerations.

42:51 So what's the big problem with the MMA?

51:20 Nitty-gritty details on the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC)

1:08:00 The missing metadata problem

1:12:20 Who's really generating most of the plays on streaming platforms?

1:18:00 How does the songwriter/artist/publisher now get paid by the MLC?

1:20:28 What steps should rights holders take before the creation of the MLC?

1:22:30 Pre-1972 oldies

1:27:10 Why doesn't AM/FM radio have to pay recording royalties?

1:31:30 A deeper history of music rights in the U.S.

1:33:50 Why can't we just figure out what's actually being played?

1:35:00 Goodbye + Outro

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