On June 5, 2019, the Department of Justice announced its opening of a formal review of the antitrust consent decrees that have regulated music performance licensing by ASCAP and BMI since the 1940s. ...more
The Background: Since 1941, performing rights organizations ("PROs"), which pool the copyrights held by a work's composer, songwriter, and publisher and collectively license those rights to music users, have been subject to...more
As we have previously blogged, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) rejected proposed modifications to the existing Broadcast Music, Inc. (“BMI”) and American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (“ASCAP”) consent...more
The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a district court ruling that composers and music publishers cannot partially withdraw from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) licensing...more
From cassette tapes to CDs to Pandora and Spotify, innovations in the music field over the past two decades have drastically changed how people access music. Songwriters, however, are paid according to a system that has been...more