MIC Coalition calls for a 'comprehensive, reliable and searchable' database of musical works

By Emmanuel Legrand

The MIC Coalition — whose members include businesses licensing music content — have filed with the US Copyright Office a submission asking for "a comprehensive, reliable and searchable database of musical works" necessary order to ensure that the music licensing ecosystem is "rational, sustainable, equitable and transparent."

  The submission was made as part of the Copyright Office’s notice of inquiry regarding the ‘Music Modernisation Act Blanket License Implementation Regulations' as part of the Orrin G. Hatch–Bob Goodlatte Music Modernisation Act (MMA). The MIC Coalition regroups organisations representing restaurants, bars, hotels, movie theaters, local radio and television broadcasters, digital music services, among others.

  MIC said it provided these specific recommendations so that they "should be included in the Mechanical Licensing Collective’s database of musical works in order to fulfill the MMA’s promise of improving the music licensing ecosystem and ultimately creating a more equitable system for artists, producers, songwriters and consumers alike."

Right to know what they sign for

  For the Coalition, "licensees have a right to know precisely what they are (and are not) licensing and to decide whether a particular blanket license actually fits their needs BEFORE they purchase that license."

  The MIC Coalition calls for a system that would:

- Mandate one comprehensive database, publicly accessible and easily searchable;

- Ensure that the data in the database is reliable in order for licensees to make informed licensing decisions and be protected from the threats of statutory damages;

- Ensure that the Copyright Office would make the database publicly accessible, in its entirety and without charges, and is updated on a real-time basis;

- Limit the remedies available to a copyright owner to bring an infringement action if the right owner failed to provide or maintain the minimum information required in the database;

- Include basic music ownership and licensing information such as: author(s), publisher(s), associated Performing Rights Organisation, record labels, names of recording artists or artists featured in the work, identity of all the owners and licensors of the copyright in the work, and standard identifiers for the music work (ISWC) and recording (ISRC).

  The MIC Coalition wrote, "Congress directed the creation of a ‘database containing information relating to musical works,’ not merely a ‘mechanical rights’ database. Any data solution must not only encompass mechanical rights, but also provide information regarding public performance rights, including PRO affiliation and splits of performance rights (which sometimes differ from splits of mechanical rights).” 

Modernise the licensing process

  It added, “A database that only provided data for mechanical rights would leave in place a balkanised system, with no central authoritative repository with information about all the musical works rights that need to be cleared by digital music providers and other licensees. This fragmentation would be inconsistent with the goals of Congress.” 

  For the MIC Coalition, "the creation of a single comprehensive, searchable and publicly accessible database will modernise the licensing process, finally making possible for businesses across the country to easily determine which rights they need to license in order to play music in their establishments and ensuring that artists are paid what they are owed." 

"Providing accurate, complete and transparent information on music ownership would "create a more equitable system for artists, producers, songwriters and consumers alike," wrote the MIC Coalition.