Music Creators North America is elated that the US Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has today responded positively to the filings by songwriter George Johnson and our organization, regarding the dire need for transparency in the mechanical rate setting process.
Read this request in full here.
The CRB has now ordered all participant digital music distributors and music publishers to file on record either all relevant, ancillary information and agreements concerning the scope and nature of their proposed streaming royalty settlement, or alternatively, to certify under oath that no such ancillary information or agreements exist. By doing so, we believe the CRB is seeking to ensure that comprehensive CRB analysis –and the submission of comments by the independent music creator community– can both be accomplished prior to the CRB’s adoption or rejection of the proposal.
This is exactly the type of openness that the US Congress intended and that the US Copyright Act demands, and we thank the CRB for its steadfastness in applying the law.
The newest CRB Order can be found at: https://app.crb.gov/document/download/27284
(Image: Vysotsky (Wikimedia), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)