The inefficient construction of the music {industry} denies creatives the royalties they’re owed. A complete world database would contribute considerably to fixing this, however earlier efforts to create such a system have failed because of the lack of transparency. Nonetheless, sure qualities of blockchain expertise readily ease these issues. The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC), which is already mandated to create such a database of music rights knowledge, is effectively fitted to this process. If the MLC adopted blockchain expertise for its database, it will assist deliver the truthful administration of music royalties on top of things with technological developments within the music {industry}.
Latest technological developments have resulted in musicians dropping out on their due mechanical royalties. One main contributing issue is the plethora of “middlemen” within the music {industry} (predominantly music publishers and document labels). The lengthy chain of communication permits ample alternatives for knowledge to go lacking and, thus, for royalty funds to slide by way of the cracks. This poor construction includes “many layers of cash has to undergo earlier than it reaches the artist or the songwriter”[i] which makes the “stream of the music knowledge provide chain…complicated.”[ii] The ensuing inefficiencies imply that “[l]icensees expend vital effort making an attempt to establish specific sound recordings and the musical works they embody, in addition to monitoring down their copyright house owners.”[iii] For licensors, “the shortage of dependable knowledge signifies that royalty funds could also be delayed, misdirected, or by no means made.”[iv] This leads to a “main ache level for creatives within the music {industry}” as a result of “they’re the primary to place in any of the work and the final ever to see any revenue.”[v] Creators will not be the one ones impacted—potential exploiters are additionally harmed. Those that search to make use of creatives’ work want to find out whether or not the work remains to be protected by copyright and, whether it is, acquire a license from the proprietor.[vi] If this proves to be too troublesome for a person, the inventive additionally loses out on a possibility to revenue from her work.
This subject has lately gained notoriety, particularly with the skyrocketing recognition of music streaming, managing the logistics of which “has at all times been a frightening process.”[vii] Digital Service Suppliers (DSPs) “had been overwhelmed” as a result of “they had been coping with multi-millions of songs, and billions of strains of information,” however “they’d no thought who owned a variety of these songs, a lot much less the place to succeed in them.” [viii] Maybe the primary purpose for that is “merely that no central database exists to maintain monitor of details about music.”[ix] There’s “no verified world registry of music creatives and their works,”[x] which ends up in “errors or gaps within the system, that, in flip, have an effect on the house owners’ authorized rights in addition to the distribution of royalty funds.”[xi]
Information administration is additional difficult as a result of copyright possession is commonly fragmented, notably within the music {industry}.[xii] Music usually includes separate copyrights for the musical work and the sound recording.[xiii] Every copyright has divisible rights,[xiv] every of which “will be owned by a couple of proprietor.”[xv] Maintaining monitor of all of the items of the pie continuously proves to be a idiot’s errand.
Furthermore, the metadata “is fragmented amongst numerous territorial organizations” who every have respective “databases that don’t sync with one another,”[xvi] which compounds the issue. As a result of the music {industry} has “adopted expertise in numerous kinds alongside the best way,” it appears like “a whole mess, a rusty, overstretched, drained machine.”[xvii] This, together with a normal lack of transparency[xviii] within the music {industry}, makes the music {industry}’s therapy of mechanical royalties untrustworthy. It’s potential that “nothing wanting a wholesale reinvention will ever result in actual change,”[xix] however with a view to create “a extra ethical approach to strategy the music {industry},”[xx] first, “we have to know precisely what’s occurring.”[xxi]
It has been steered, more and more typically in the previous couple of years, that “blockchain expertise has the potential to get the music {industry}’s messy home so as.”[xxii] One approach to clear up and straighten the music {industry}’s mechanical royalty knowledge can be by way of “a decentralized, open-source world platform, owned and managed by no single entity,”[xxiii] the widespread implementation of which might “present[] content material creators with helpful data relating to the use and gross sales of their musical works.”[xxiv] Such a “would include correct, real-time, world knowledge encompassing credit and rights possession” and “open to and accessible by anybody.”[xxv] This construction would produce “an excessive amount of transparency,”[xxvi] and doubtlessly, “[m]usic creatives may construct upon such a registry to instantly add new works and metadata by way of blockchain-verified profiles.”[xxvii] On this approach, the music {industry} may additionally higher “document who’s utilizing a piece, so {that a} truthful remuneration will be calculated.”[xxviii]
This database would implement good contracts, which “would acknowledge the supply of the fee…after which immediately break up and redirect royalties to all of the addresses entitled to funds from the service for his or her tune.”[xxix] This expertise would get rid of the middlemen,[xxx] concurrently decreasing the inefficiencies of mechanical royalty funds and guaranteeing that music creatives obtain their due royalties—extra rapidly and precisely. Sensible contracts may additionally facilitate licenses for potential customers of the music.[xxxi]
Naturally, the eradicated middlemen might be strongly against the {industry} shifting on this course.[xxxii] In spite of everything, “the events who profit essentially the most from lack of transparency within the music {industry} are the labels, publishers, and streaming providers,” and “the events who profit most from the shortage of transparency are those who will resist something that ends the shortage [of] transparency.”[xxxiii] Earlier than the Music Modernization Act (MMA), mentioned under, these organizations stored the cash if they might not correctly distribute mechanical royalties.[xxxiv] There’s “little to no incentive” for these organizations to “undertake…any expertise that will power them to make much less advantageous offers, or render extra correct reporting that will negatively influence their backside line.”[xxxv] Due to this fact, “getting a number of self-interested organizations to cooperate in making a separate, highly effective group” appears unimaginable.[xxxvi] It could possibly be virtually complicated, then, to acquire the required knowledge from these organizations. [xxxvii]
Another excuse to be pessimistic about such a novel music knowledge platform is that earlier makes an attempt at establishing a database like this have fallen flat[xxxviii]—”the historic document to this point isn’t encouraging.”[xxxix] The principal causes behind these failures in creating centralized registries are “the sheer complexity of gathering all that knowledge in a single place and holding it updated, the shortage of monetary incentives, and problems with energy and management over the info by a single entity.”[xl] Nonetheless, “there stays a reasonably large consensus within the music enterprise that a greater system of rights possession data administration is essential to the creating digital music {industry}.”[xli] Due to current mistrust within the music {industry}, although, “the query can be who would have management over the info and who would have been administering the catalog.”[xlii]
Varied companies are exploring leveraging blockchain expertise for mental property rights administration.[xliii] The Open Music Initiative (OMI), based in 2016,[xliv] is among the dozens of startups[xlv] making an attempt to take action within the music {industry}. OMI has “managed to collect nearly each occasion underneath the industry-wide solar to elucidate why blockchain is at the very least price exploring and interesting with,”[xlvi] in an try to “reinvent, construct, and implement a brand new standardized digital structure to trace, account, and attribute fee for music.”[xlvii] OMI has “created an API that corporations can voluntarily construct into their methods” to trace key knowledge, however OMI is explicitly “not constructing a database or a particular product.”[xlviii]
The motion towards utilizing blockchain expertise throughout the music {industry} is undoubtedly encouraging. Nonetheless, that many impartial corporations are doing so carries regarding potential for additional fragmentation and mixed-up knowledge.[xlix] Furthermore, current errors and lacking knowledge can’t be immediately mounted. There’ll have to be vital effort and time invested in correcting errors and filling within the blanks.[l] It could be extra environment friendly if there have been one platform to host and handle the music {industry}’s royalty knowledge.[li]
A key query stays: “who will lead this effort?”[lii] Attributable to lack of belief, a single entity making a centralized database for mechanical royalties has been unable to collect sufficient assist and acquire traction. Blockchain is “about the important thing gamers getting tighter behind a basis,” and “it is going to take years and doubtless some authorities intervention if we wish it to maneuver quicker.”[liii] Some have steered that “[c]reating a helpful database might require a push from the federal government, comparable to supplied within the MMA.”[liv]
Enter the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC).[lv] The MMA established the MLC in 2018[lvi] with the intent of fixing “nonpayment of royalties for mechanical rights.”[lvii] In response to the DSPs retaining unmatched royalties,[lviii] impartial music publishers had sued for copyright infringement, which motivated the DSPs to pay the suitable financial dues.[lix] For the reason that MMA was handed, with widespread assist all through the music {industry},[lx] the MLC, funded by the DSPs, now handles the brand new obligatory blanket license for streaming providers and should accumulate cash from voluntary licenses.[lxi]
To be able to do that, the MLC should “arrange and preserve a free, publicly obtainable database of all of the songs, publishers, and writers,”[lxii] which should include specified data[lxiii] to ensure that the MLC to have the ability to correctly monitor down the place the cash is meant to go.[lxiv] If the MLC’s database had been to include “all copyright knowledge,”[lxv] and even simply extra complete data “on different rights, comparable to efficiency and sound recording rights,” and this “turns into the definitive database,” this might “enhance licensing effectivity” all through the music {industry}.[lxvi]
As well as, the MLC has mechanisms with a view to guarantee the standard of[lxvii] and confirm[lxviii] the info that enters the database,[lxix] together with dispute decision procedures[lxx] to assist decide what mechanical rights belong to whom. That is necessary to ensure that the info to “be of ample high quality to be thought of authoritative,”[lxxi] but additionally to keep away from the “garbage-in, garbage-out” drawback.[lxxii] As soon as data enters the blockchain, it “can’t be altered or eliminated,” so it’s essential that the “entities performing the validation want ample incentives to do it appropriately.”[lxxiii] If the music royalty knowledge is inaccurate when it enters the blockchain database, “blockchain couldn’t assist to make sure royalty funds are executed any higher than the present methods do.”[lxxiv]
The MLC is supposed to “ingest [this] knowledge from [music rights organizations] and different authoritative sources to create its grasp database,”[lxxv] together with from PROs,[lxxvi] though it is going to naturally be tougher to acquire data from non-public databases, comparable to these created by the Harry Fox Company (HFA).[lxxvii] Moreover, the MLC may develop its database to incorporate data pertaining to extra than simply mechanical royalties. As an illustration, it may coordinate with and incorporate data collected by SoundExchange,[lxxviii] which is “a nonprofit entity designated, and controlled, by the federal government”[lxxix] and is chargeable for “accumulate[ing] and distribut[ing] digital efficiency royalties on behalf of greater than 570,000 music creators.”[lxxx] SoundExchange collects such data for sound recordings as “monitor titles, document labels, featured artists, play occasions, and ISRCs,” which data it has already made public.[lxxxi] Certainly, the music {industry}’s knowledge system “can be tremendously ameliorated if all those that wanted it had entry to authoritative knowledge regarding the possession of musical works and sound recordings.”[lxxxii]
If the MLC had been to deal with essentially the most complete blockchain database containing royalty knowledge for the music {industry}, it will additionally deal with the above-listed issues, together with centralization and transparency. A blockchain system, as soon as established by one group (the MLC), may finally be decentralized, since “[n]o single entity owns a blockchain, so there is no such thing as a subject of management or affect”[lxxxiii] and “incorporating blockchain into the newly referred to as for database may enable impartial artists to handle and administer their copyrights.”[lxxxiv] Moreover, the MLC should “preserve a publicly accessible on-line facility with contact data for the collective,”[lxxxv] that means no data in any way can be hidden. The U.S. Copyright Workplace has even hinted that the MLC ought to incorporate blockchain expertise (with out going as far as to say so explicitly).[lxxxvi]
As well as, these from whom the MLC would possibly accumulate this royalty knowledge won’t be as immune to sharing that knowledge. PROs won’t be made solely out of date, as they nonetheless present immense worth to music creatives by advantage of collective bargaining.[lxxxvii] Moreover, these organizations appear to be steadily shifting in the direction of opening their knowledge to the general public, despite the fact that, because it stands, “[e]very entity treats its knowledge as proprietary and intrinsically helpful” since they “make investments closely of their datasets.”[lxxxviii] As an illustration, ASCAP and BMI have lately made their rights data publicly accessible on a shared platform, Songview, “in an effort to supply the {industry} with extra readability round possession shares.”[lxxxix] Additional, these organizations will nonetheless be capable of revenue within the music {industry} since “[w]idespread adoption of Blockchain platforms throughout the music {industry} may immediate a brand new wave of change, but stay suitable with up to date fashions of digital music consumption and distribution.”[xc] All it requires is for them “to have religion that they are going to make more cash by doing the appropriate factor—which might result in truthful remuneration, transparency, and a mess of latest enterprise alternatives for artists.”[xci]
In conclusion, the MLC could possibly be the check case for implementing blockchain expertise to keep up a complete database of music royalty rights, with the potential to result in or encourage a world database. Whereas “one has to marvel in regards to the tempo of widespread adoption of this expertise,”[xcii] if the MLC had been to show success right here, “then hesitant content material creators, resistant incumbents, and the vital mass might be obliged to observe.”[xciii] The music {industry} acknowledges that “metadata must be standardized…to the extent potential.” The MLC “is able to be the standard-bearer and definitive supply on this effort” and it “ought to look to marshal industry-wide assist in laying additional groundwork for world adoption.”[xciv] If the MLC leads the cost in implementing a blockchain system for music rights administration, it could possibly be a driving power to alter how the music {industry} manages royalty knowledge.
Edited by Tavishi Nidadhavolu
Image by Adrian Korte
Endnotes
[i] Ava Roche & Samuel Smith, Breakdown: Music Streaming Monetization Circulate, Music Bus. J. (Sept. 2019),
[ii] U.S. Copyright Off., Unclaimed Royalties: Finest Apply Suggestions for the Mechanical Licensing Collective 16 (2021) [hereinafter Unclaimed Royalties Report] (“Information is consistently generated and up to date by quite a few events, can change arms continuously, and will be fed by way of totally different streams to totally different entities, and the info for musical works and sound recordings might stream individually and will not be linked to one another.”).
[iii] U.S. Copyright Off., Copyright and the Music Market: A Report of the Register of Copyrights 124, 125 (2015) [hereinafter Music Marketplace Report].
[iv] Id.
[v] Imogen Heap, Blockchain Might Assist Musicians Make Cash Once more, Harv. Bus. Rev. (June 5, 2017),
[vi] Sebastian Pech, Copyright Unchained: How Blockchain Expertise Can Change the Administration and Distribution of Copyright Protected Works, 18 Nw. J. Tech. & Intell. Prop. 1, 3–5 (2020) (“The identification and localization of the present proper holder is time- and resource-intensive and results in excessive transaction prices.”).
[vii] John Lahr, A Truthful Music Report, Music Bus. J. (Oct. 2015),
[viii] Donald S. Passman, All You Must Know Concerning the Music Enterprise 239–40 (tenth ed. 2019) (“It’s easy sufficient to search out the foremost publishers, however they don’t management all of the songs. The truth is, even on songs the place the majors have an curiosity, they often don’t have all of the rights (as a result of among the a number of house owners of the songs aren’t main publishers, or as a result of the foremost solely controls sure territories of the world, and many others.). And even when the DSPs may discover the house owners, they weren’t set as much as deal with tens of 1000’s of licenses from obscure publishers around the globe.”).
[ix] D.A. Wallach, Bitcoin for Rockstars: How Cryptocurrency Can Revolutionize Information and Funds within the Music Trade, Wired (Dec. 10, 2014, 12:00 AM),
[x] Heap, supra be aware v.
[xi] Jaclyn Wishnia, Blockchain Expertise: The Blueprint for Rebuilding the Music Trade?, 37 Cardozo Arts & Ent. L.J. 229, 235 (2019).
[xii] See Pech, supra be aware vi, at 6–7; see additionally, e.g., Illustration of Present Licensing Framework in Music Market Report, supra be aware iii, at app’x D; Illustration of Royalty Streams Associated to the Digital Distribution of Music in The Digital Music Royalties Panorama, The MLC, (final visited Oct. 12, 2022).
[xiii] See U.S. Copyright Off., Round 56A: Copyright Registration of Musical Compositions and Sound Recordings (2021),
[xiv] 17 USC § 106; see additionally Pech, supra be aware vi, at 6.
[xv] Pech, supra be aware vi, at 6.
[xvi] Wallach, supra be aware ix.
[xvii] George Howard, Imogen Heap’s Mycelia: An Artist’s Strategy for a Truthful Commerce Music Enterprise, Impressed by Blockchain, Forbes (July 17, 2015, 3:04 PM),
[xviii] David Byrne, Open the Music Trade’s Black Field, NY Instances (July 31, 2015),
[xix] Howard, supra be aware xvii.
[xx] George Howard, ‘Bitcoin for Rock Stars’ a 12 months Later: An Replace from D.A. Wallach on Blockchain and the Arts Half 1, Forbes (Sept. 25, 2015, 2:00 PM),
[xxi] Byrne, supra be aware xviii.
[xxii] Heap, supra be aware v.
[xxiii] Wallach, supra be aware ix.
[xxiv] Wishnia, supra be aware xi, at 179.
[xxv] Wallach, supra be aware ix (“This might make it the common, authoritative reservoir for these kinds of data.”). It may doubtlessly additionally “function an instantaneous, frictionless funds routing infrastructure for all music utilization charges and royalties.” Id.
[xxvi] George Howard, The Bitcoin Blockchain Simply May Save the Music Trade…If Solely We Might Perceive It, Forbes (Could 17, 2015, 10:35 AM), (“With elevated transparency comes elevated pace and want for offers/transactions.”).
[xxvii] Heap, supra be aware v.
[xxviii] World Intell. Prop. Off., Blockchain Applied sciences and IP Ecosystems: A WIPO White Paper 40 (2022),
[xxix] Wallach, supra be aware ix.
[xxx] See Chris Marple, The Instances They Are A-Chaingin’: How Music’s Mechanical Licensing System Could Have Lastly Moved into the twenty first Century, 26 Richmond J. L. & Tech. 1, 33 (2020); Arya Taghdiri, How Blockchain Expertise Can Revolutionize the Music Trade, 10 Harv. J. Sports activities & Ent. L. 173, 179 (2019) (“good contracts utterly corrode the standard relationship between content material creators and intermediaries.”).
[xxxi] Pech, supra be aware vi, at 26 (“[A] copyright system that requires one to acquire a license upfront inevitably results in transaction prices. A blockchain-based copyright register can considerably cut back these prices.”). See usually id. at 36–42. The facilitation of licensing would additionally support the MLC’s administration of its blanket license. See supra web page 8.
[xxxii] See Wishnia, supra be aware xi, at 246, 246 n.143 (“For one, it is going to value thousands and thousands to implement a complete blockchain system. Secondly, it is going to lengthen pointless negotiations about who will management and enter knowledge to the blockchain. Lastly, there might be a bidding struggle over relinquishing music legacy catalogs since a lot of the cash stems from them and the most important rights holders won’t be keen to share it.”).
[xxxiii] George Howard, Bitcoin Can’t Save the Music Trade As a result of the Music Trade Will Resist Transparency, Forbes (Could 22, 2015, 9:18 AM),
[xxxiv] Passman, supra be aware viii, at 240.
[xxxv] Howard, supra be aware xxxiii.
[xxxvi] Wallach, supra be aware ix.
[xxxvii] Unclaimed Royalties Report, supra be aware ii, at 5 (“Music metadata has extra typically been seen as a aggressive benefit for the occasion that controls the database, quite than as a useful resource for constructing an {industry} on.”).
[xxxviii] Pech, supra be aware vi, at 9 (for instance, “the Worldwide Music Joint Enterprise by a bunch of assortment societies, the Worldwide Music Registry by the World Mental Property Group (WIPO), and the World Repertoire Database by a bunch of music {industry} entities (together with assortment societies, PROs, and tech corporations).”).
[xxxix] Alexander Stewart, The Trace of Blockchain, Music Bus. J. (Dec. 2016), (“If profitable, Blockchain would supersede the necessity for a GRD kind answer.”).
[xl] Invoice Rosenblatt, The Way forward for Blockchain Expertise within the Music Trade, 35 Ent. & Sports activities Regulation. 12, 16 (2019).
[xli] Klementina Milosic, GRD’s Failure, Music Bus. J. (Aug. 2015),
[xlii] Id.
[xliii] For instance, the European Union Mental Property Workplace has begun utilizing a blockchain-based registry to handle trademark and design knowledge. See EUIPO Connects to TMview and DesignView Via Blockchain, EUIPO (Apr. 27, 2021),
[xliv] Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Blockchain and the Music Trade: Turning Pennies into {Dollars}, Open Music Initiative (Jan. 19, 2018),
[xlv] See Thomas M. Lenard & Lawrence J. White, The Similar Previous Tune, 41 Regulation 30, 33 (2018) (“[A] variety of nongovernmental teams are already engaged on this drawback.”).
[xlvi] Heap, supra be aware v.
[xlvii] John Lahr, Berklee’s Open Music Initiative, Music Bus. J. (Aug. 2016),
[xlviii] About, Open Music Initiative, (final visited Oct. 12, 2022).
[xlix] Wishnia, supra be aware xi, at 250 (“The… startups acknowledge the significance of a clear, complete database to maintain monitor of homeowners’ rights and facilitate funds. Therefore, they’re recommending some type of blockchain as a panacea. The formation of those corporations, nonetheless, is aiding in reproducing the problems that they had been initially attempting to unravel: fractured knowledge.”).
[l] Matthew Hawn, Why Blockchain Gained’t Save the Music Trade (At Least, Not But), Digit. Music Information (Dec. 9, 2016), (“This doesn’t go away whenever you transfer the infrastructure to the blockchain; if something, it will get worse and can value thousands and thousands to repair. Because of this most blockchain initiatives begin contemporary and don’t look again. Nonetheless, a lot of the cash to be made is in that catalogue of legacy music.”).
[li] See Rosenblatt, supra be aware xl, at 16 (“It could be a lot simpler for all events to speak with a single entity by way of a normal interface quite than many various entities with their interfaces and knowledge necessities; it will facilitate new service suppliers that enhance effectivity; accuracy, and accountability even additional; and it will enhance rights holders’ visibility into royalties that they’re owed.”).
[lii] Blockchain: Recording the Music Trade, PwC at 3 (2018),
[liii] Hawn, supra be aware l (“The answer we’re in search of is…the privately run however nonprofit group that manages” a blockchain database.).
[liv] Lenard & White, supra be aware xlv (“quite a lot of nongovernmental teams are already engaged on this drawback.”); see additionally Pech, supra be aware vi, at 19.
[lv] The MLC because the administrator of such a copyright database, matches the suggestion of “entrust[ing] a publicly regulated non-public registrar” to do the job. Pech, supra be aware vi, at 19 (describing issues with solely non-public or public directors).
[lvi] 17 U.S.C. § 115(d)(3)(C)(i) (2021); 37 C.F.R. § 210.23(a) (2021).
[lvii] Lenard & White, supra be aware xlv, at 33.
[lviii] See supra web page 2.
[lix] Passman, supra be aware viii, at 240.
[lx] Id. (“[W]e had a kind of uncommon occasions when either side had been aligned of their targets, and this kum-ba-ya second gave beginning to the MMA.”).
[lxi] Id. at 217, 240, 241.
[lxii] Id. at 241 (“It will actually be a helpful asset.”); 17 USC § 115(d)(3)(E)(i).
[lxiii] See 37 CFR § 210.23.
[lxiv] See Jeff Brabec & Todd Brabec, Music Charges and Royalties in Immediately’s and Tomorrow’s World, 37 Ent. & Sports activities Regulation. 6, 7 (2021) (“One other crucial side of [the MLC’s] mandate is to construct a portal in order that composition data will be seen and corrected within the occasion of errors which is able to help within the matching of unmatched works to the right royalty recipients.”).
[lxv] Taghdiri, supra be aware xxx, at 179.
[lxvi] Lenard & White, supra be aware xlv, at 34.
[lxvii] See Unclaimed Royalties Report, supra be aware ii, at 54.
[lxviii] See id. at 50.
[lxix] See id. at 57 (“[T]o assist preserve the standard of its knowledge, it has carried out its Information High quality Initiative (“DQI”) to ‘help[] copyright house owners and directors in evaluating schedules of their works towards the MLC’s works knowledge” by offering “experiences that spotlight discrepancies between the 2 units of information in order that they’ll deal with these discrepancies and enhance the accuracy of information associated to their works.’”).
[lxx] See 17 USC § 115(d)(3)(Ok).
[lxxi] Unclaimed Royalties Report, supra be aware ii, at 60.
[lxxii] See Pech, supra be aware vi, at 21 (“Info saved on a blockchain is extremely tamper-resistant, however blockchain expertise itself isn’t a magic treatment for poor high quality knowledge.”).
[lxxiii] Rosenblatt, supra be aware xl, at 12.
[lxxiv] David Idokogi, Decentralizing Creativity: A Tenable Case for Blockchain Adoption within the Leisure Trade, 47 Rutgers Comput. & Tech. L.J. 274, 298 (2021).
[lxxv] Music Market Report, supra be aware iii, at 193.
[lxxvi] Id. at 19–20
[lxxvii] See id. at 21.
[lxxviii] Id. at 193.
[lxxix] Id. at 192.
[lxxx] About SoundExchange, SoundExchange, (Oct. 12, 2022).
[lxxxi] Music Market Report, supra be aware iii, at 193.
[lxxxii] Id. at 190.
[lxxxiii] Rosenblatt, supra be aware xl, at 16.
[lxxxiv] Idokogi, supra be aware lxxiv, at 298.
[lxxxv] Unclaimed Royalties Report, supra be aware ii, at 6; see 37 CFR § 210.32.
[lxxxvi] Id.at 62 (“The Workplace recommends that the MLC ought to work to make sure that its knowledge is in sync with the info held and submitted by the authoritative sources of the info. Extra particularly, the Workplace recommends that the MLC make use of automation the place potential, comparable to by organising knowledge exchanges and utilizing APIs with copyright house owners’ inner databases to help with real-time updates and the detection of discrepancies, particularly with bigger copyright house owners the place the info is especially voluminous. The Workplace additional recommends that the MLC have applicable mechanisms in place to just accept new and up to date (together with corrected) data from these copyright house owners who will not be geared up for APIs and different automated exchanges….”).
[lxxxvii] See Howard, supra be aware xx; Midem, How Blockchain Can Change the Music Trade – Midem 2016, YouTube (June 5, 2016),
[lxxxviii] Wallach, supra be aware ix (“However finally, all of this data is simply data. Who owns which rights are merely details. There isn’t a good purpose that each one these details can not stay in public, accessible by anybody anyplace.”); see Pech, supra be aware vi, at 6–7.
[lxxxix] ASCAP and BMI Launch SONGVIEW, a Complete Information Useful resource for Music Customers, ASCAP (Dec. 21, 2020), GMR and SESAC have additionally established related public platforms; see Search Catalog, World Music Rights, (final visited Oct. 12, 2022); Repertory, SESAC, (final visited Oct. 12, 2022).
[xc] Stewart, supra be aware xxxix (“For music labels and licensing our bodies, there is a chance to be on the forefront of change by working with artists and distributors to ascertain new requirements and methods of working that attain proper throughout the {industry}.”).
[xci] Heap, supra be aware v.
[xcii] George Howard, The Key to Widespread Artist Adoption of Blockchain Could Be By way of an Esoteric Copyright Regulation, FORBES (Apr. 18, 2017, 4:34 PM), see additionally Passman, supra be aware viii, at 140–41 (“The Passman Idea of Expertise Cycles”).
[xciii] Taghdiri, supra be aware xxx, at 194.
[xciv] Music Market Report, supra be aware iii, at 322.
