“After a long and complicated journey, the Senate passed the Music Modernization Act today by unanimous consent, paving the way for improved royalty payments to songwriters, artists and creatives in the digital era,” reads an unsigned Tuesday (9/18) Variety article. “Next, the bill returns to the House for approval of the Senate version, then it will go before President Trump to be signed into law. The House bill passed unanimously in April and a similar Senate bill was introduced in May, but met opposition…. There was no small amount of urgency…. There was a very real possibility that, if the bill were not approved by the Senate now, the entire process would have to be done over with a new Congress. Via a procedure called ‘hotlining,’ a bill can move forward quickly if it receives unanimous support…. A last-minute deal was struck on Tuesday between SiriusXM, the National Music Publishers Association and the Recording Industry Association of America, brokered through Global Music Rights chief Irving Azoff, that led to the unanimous vote…. The Senate bill combines three separate pieces of legislation: The Music Modernization Act of 2018 … … the CLASSICS Act … … and the AMP Act (or Allocation for Music Producers Act).”
Posted September 20, 2018
