Artists Like Taylor Swift Have Role To Play in Music Royalties Bill Debate
Taylor Swift's recent role in getting Apple to modify its royalties policy for its new Apple Music service shows she could be an influential voice for artists in the ongoing debate over how to address performance royalties in the House Judiciary Committee's work on possible revisions to the Copyright Act, but all artists' power is limited, industry lawyers and lobbyists said during an event Friday. Swift wrote an open letter to Apple in late June protesting against Apple's original plan not to pay royalties on music streamed during three-monthslong free trials for Apple Music. The company then reversed course and agreed to pay out royalties for songs streamed during trial periods (see 1506220060).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Swift is “obviously tremendously powerful in getting the message about supporting fair pay for artists out there,” which could provide a model for artists who want to influence royalty-related legislation on Capitol Hill, said Julia Massimino, SoundExchange vice president-global public policy. House Judiciary is in the process of collecting stakeholder input on how to proceed on possible Copyright Act-related legislation; House Judiciary members floated bills like the Fair Play Fair Pay Act (HR-1733) and a draft of the Copyright Office for the Digital Economy Act (see 1506050057). A common theme has been to ensure that “artists and copyright owners have the opportunity to get fair market value for their work,” Massimino said.
Many other stakeholders attached to independent labels “did a lot of the ground work” to influence Apple's decision to modify its policy on Apple Music royalties, which “speaks to the power” independent labels have, said Kevin Erickson, Future of Music Coalition communications and outreach manager. Swift's association with independent label Big Machine Records gives her “a degree of freedom to speak out” about concerns with the music industry's royalty structure -- including threatening to pull her performances from streaming services' catalogs -- that would be more limited if she were signed to a major label, Erickson said. Swift's power to pull performance rights for her songs from streaming services is itself limited to her own performances since she doesn't hold copyrights for the music she performs, said Thorsen French Advocacy Founder Alec French.
Artists should talk with members of Congress about their concerns about the music industry's existing licensing and royalties structure, since the “best outcome” will come from collaboration between them, Erickson said. Legislation to change aspects of the licensing and royalties structure will need to address the complicated set of royalty policies that vary between rules governing on-demand and subscription streaming services like Spotify from preprogrammed services like Pandora, Erickson said. He noted that Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante has said changes to the statute would need to demystify that structure. Recording artists themselves are “trying their best to navigate this maze of different policy structures” amid their work to keep track of multiple revenue streams, Erickson said.