The company that claims to organize the worlds information, could not figure out how locate a songwriter named Brian Wilson, he wrote a little song called “Surfer Girl.”   They filed an “address unknown” notice with the US Copyright Office.  Wtf?

Rep. Sensenbrenner has introduced a bill called “The Transparency in Licensing Act.”  We songwriters call it “The Shiv Act.” It’s pure doublespeak. It has nothing to do with “transparency.”  It is clearly designed to stab songwriters in the back while greatly benefitting the largest members of the Mic-Coalition.org. Read more here,here and here.

In case you are not familiar, the Mic-Coalition is an astroturf group made up of mostly tech behemoths and broadcasters.  At last count these companies’ combined market share exceeded 1.5 trillion dollars. The bill purports to support small businesses like the independent brewers represented by The Brewers Alliance, but it does not.  In fact my unscientific sampling of independent brewers seems to indicate 1) Independent Brewers didn’t know they were supporting this bill, 2) are unaware they were even part of the alliance 3)didn’t know they had urgent music licensing concerns requiring legislative fix. (Maybe the DC policy rep for Brewers Association should explain rationale to members?).

This bill seems to have been designed by the Very Large Business Administration (as opposed to the Small Business Administration). The bill is a complete giveaway to the likes of  Google, and ClearChannel. So just normal pay to play government legislation, right? Nothing to see here people, move along.

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