Scibilia Discusses PROs Licensing Battle in Bloomberg BNA
Partner Frank Scibilia, Co-Chair of Pryor Cashman’s Digital Media Group, spoke with Bloomberg BNA for a recent article examining efforts by the U.S. Department of Justice to alter a rule governing how music licenses are structured.
Online music streaming providers such as Pandora, Google Play and Apple Music stand to benefit should the DOJ successfully persuade the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that each of the country’s two largest performance rights organizations (“PROs”), ASCAP and BMI, should be required to grant licenses for all of the shares of the works that each PRO controls, even if the PRO is only authorized by its copyright owner licensors to grant licenses for a fractional share of those works. Presently and historically, PROs have only granted fractional licenses. Under fractional licensing, if a song has multiple composers who are split between different PROs, streaming providers and other licensees must secure licenses from each PRO. In contrast, the DOJ’s proposed rule would require each PRO to fully license split songs and then determine how royalties should be divided.
Explaining the challenges PROs will face under the new rule, Scibilia told Bloomberg, “PROs would be responsible for collecting and distributing royalties to songwriters and publishers with whom they had no relationship. There could also be confusion regarding which PROs’ rates, fees and terms would apply to any given license. The PROs don’t necessarily charge the same fees or pay the same royalties to members.”
To read the full article, please click here.
More About Scibilia
Recognized as one of the country’s top intellectual property and entertainment lawyers, Scibilia represents content owners on all aspects of copyright law - including litigation, licensing, enforcement, rights clearance and due diligence - with a strong focus on digital music issues. His work has had a direct financial impact on major music industry clients, their songwriters and recording artists, and the industry as a whole.
To learn more about Scibilia’s practice, please visit here.
