[Editor Charlie sez:  As David Lowery has posted, it’s looking like the Senate version of the “Music Modernization Act” may not include the CLASSICS Act which would require royalty deadbeats at the Digital Media Association, SiriusXM and Pandora to pay their fair share of performance royalties for our legacy artists who recorded before 1972.  This loophole has been exploited and defended by the head of the Digital Media Association while he was formerly at SiriusXM and Pandora.  David caught him promoting a position from Google shills Public Knowledge and now Terry Hart has called out Professor Mark Lemley for trying to pull the bait and switch from the House bill to the Senate version of MMA (which means “Music Modernization Act” not “Make More Algorithms”).  Professor Lemley has plenty of entries in the “Google Academics” database, a handy tool for tracking Google’s influence.]

On April 25, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Music Modernization Act, H.R. 5447, by a vote of 415-0. The comprehensive bill “updates music copyright laws by creating a new compulsory blanket licensing system for mechanical works, updating the rate standards applicable to music licensing, modifying the rate setting process in the Southern District of New York, providing copyright royalties to pre-1972 artists, and ensuring that producers, mixers, and sound engineers are able to receive compensation for their creativity.” ¹ The unanimous vote is a reflection of the extraordinary consensus among all parts of the music industry, including digital service providers.

Following passage, Stanford professor and Durie Tangri partner Mark Lemley tweeted [Durie Tangri lawyers gleefully represented Google in its full frontal assault on authors rights in the garbage law Google Books case and also defended another case where tech ripped off dead guys for Goldiblox with the Beastie Boys]:²

House unanimously passes copyright reform act that unfortunately includes term extension for sound recording performance rights for as long as 144 years. https://t.co/fHlbqvJBOl

— Mark Lemley (@marklemley) April 25, 2018

He was referring to Title II of the bill, an amended version of the CLASSICS Act (H.R. 3301), which would mandate royalty payments for sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, for certain digital performances. His point was echoed by Krista Cox, director of public policy initiatives at the Association of Research Libraries, who wrote in Above the Law, “The biggest issue is that CLASSICS extends copyright term for sound recordings beyond what a sound recording today would be granted.”

These statements are strikingly incorrect.

Read the post on Copyhype

Here’s a screen cap of Lemley’s entries in Google Academics:

And here’s Google acknowleging financial support for Public Knowledge in the famous Google Shill List