Welcome
Welcome to my blog! Here you’ll find my periodic musings about the music business, copyright, creativity and other legal and artistic endeavors. While blog posts may be considered attorney advertising, my aim is to write short, pithy pieces with helpful information. Sometimes I’ll just write about something I find interesting, like cats. Enjoy!
Five Reasons Why You Should Register Your Works With the Copyright Office
Note: Please be sure to read to the end for an important update regarding a 2019 Supreme Court decision regarding copyright registrations. I was recently roped into a Facebook feed by a composer client and asked to opine on whether composers and songwriters (and other creative artists for that matter) should register their works with the […]
Second Circuit Give Summary Victory to Songwriters
Before getting to the Summary the Summary Order issued by the Second Circuit on December 19, a bit of a review is appropriate. The Second Circuit’s decision has to do with whether the consent decree under which BMI has operated for decades requires it to engage in “100% licensing” (also known as “full work licensing”) […]
Will the Fair Play Fair Pay Act Get a Fair Hearing This Time?
On March 30, 2017, nearly two years ago to the day that they introduced the Fair Play Fair Pay Act of 2015, Reps. Nadler and Blackburn now re-introduce the bill as the Fair Play Fair Pay Act of 2017. Will this legislation go through or will it just be another “repeat and fade out?” My […]
BMI Rate Court Judge KO’s DOJ on 100% Licensing
In what had been scheduled to be a mere pre-motion conference, the federal district judge overseeing the BMI Consent Decree, Louis L. Stanton, decided to hold a hearing on Friday, September 16. He then issued a six-page Opinion and Declaratory Judgment, ruling against DOJ’s interpretation of the decree which would have required 100% or “whole […]