[Editor Charlie sez: ARW readers have probably seen the mainstream promotion for the two contenders to be the Mechanical Licensing Collective under the Music Modernization Act.  What you may not have seen is the commentary from the indie community.  The Copyright Office is currently soliciting input from the creative community about who would do a better job, “the MLC” supported by the National Music Publishers Association and their allies NSAI and SONA, or the American Mechanical Licensing Collective, backed by Zoë Keating, Stewart Copeland, Maria Schneider and many other songwriters.  The comment period closed on April 22 and all comments are now posted on the Regulations.gov website.  Following are selected comments and links that are important and raise many significant fairness issues as well as some business questions and legal hurdles that the MLC will ultimately need to get past.  It’s not that others aren’t also interesting to the extent they are not form comments to the “Registrar of Copyright”…sheesh…it’s just that you’ve probably heard it all before.]

DOCUMENT ID:    COLC-2018-0011-0017 (https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=COLC-2018-0011-0017)
DOCUMENT TYPE:  PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS
POSTED DATE:    04/23/2019
DOCUMENT TITLE: Schneider, Maria – Reply Comments

DOCUMENT ID:    COLC-2018-0011-0018 (https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=COLC-2018-0011-0018)
DOCUMENT TYPE:  PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS
POSTED DATE:    04/23/2019
DOCUMENT TITLE: Keating, Zoe et al. – Reply Comments

DOCUMENT ID:    COLC-2018-0011-0056 (https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=COLC-2018-0011-0056)
DOCUMENT TYPE:  PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS
POSTED DATE:    04/23/2019
DOCUMENT TITLE: SGA (Songwriters Guild of America) – Reply Comments

DOCUMENT ID:    COLC-2018-0011-0038 (https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=COLC-2018-0011-0038)
DOCUMENT TYPE:  PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS
POSTED DATE:    04/23/2019
DOCUMENT TITLE: MusicAnswers – Reply Comments

DOCUMENT ID:    COLC-2018-0011-0039 (https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=COLC-2018-0011-0039)
DOCUMENT TYPE:  PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS
POSTED DATE:    04/23/2019
DOCUMENT TITLE: Muddiman, Helene (pt. 1) – Reply Comments

DOCUMENT ID:    COLC-2018-0011-0040 (https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=COLC-2018-0011-0040)
DOCUMENT TYPE:  PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS
POSTED DATE:    04/23/2019
DOCUMENT TITLE: Muddiman, Helene (pt. 2) – Reply Comments

DOCUMENT ID:    COLC-2018-0011-0041 (https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=COLC-2018-0011-0041)
DOCUMENT TYPE:  PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS
POSTED DATE:    04/23/2019
DOCUMENT TITLE: Muddiman, Helene (pt. 3) – Reply Comments