A2IM: American Association of Independent Music

Posted in News by A2IM

Both the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress and the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee have made clear via hearings and reports that Copyright Reform will be a focus during the coming year.

Associate Register of Copyrights and Director of Policy & International Affairs Karyn Temple Claggett will join us during Indie week to give us the Copyright Office perspective on the key issues affecting our community.

The Annual meeting will take place on  Thursday, June 20 from 2:00-5:00PM during A2IM’s Indie Week 2013. The full schedule for Indie Week 2013 can be seen HERE.

Posted in News by A2IM

A2IM, as representatives of small and medium sized music creator businesses with limited resources, filed comments with the U.S. Copyright in response to the Copyright Office Notice of Intent related to Technological Upgrades to Registration and Recordation Functions. A2IM supports this Technological upgrade initiative that the Copyright Office is undertaking but at the same time wanted to highlight the concerns of small and medium sized creators in implementing these changes. Most of these concerns are related to our communities limited resources and the goal of protecting the ownership of our copyrights. The full filing is HERE, please let us know any additional thoughts you might have.

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A2IM filed with the Copyright Office related to proposed regulation changes for reporting to publishers under the Section 115 compulsory license which allows for the usage of written compositions for sound recordings. A2IM found two clauses especially problematic. The proposal to not allow negative reserve balances on physical sales to be offset against amounts due publishers for digital distribution and the additional reporting requirements which could require reporting for each individual service. Our full filing is HERE.

Posted in News by A2IM

A2IM recently joined with some of our music creator colleagues in a filing with the Copyright Office. The filing related to a Copyright Office inquiry about setting up a small claims court, claim amount limit not defined, where claims could be made outside the normally expensive court room process. The A2IM board and staff discussed the proposal and determined that the amount of time and money spent defending against numerous frivolous lawsuits could potentially out-weigh any potential benefits to A2IM’s independent label community. In the filing it is noted that we plan to continue to evaluate the proposed court as the process proceeds and the outline of exactly how the small claims court process, if enacted, is defined.  A2IM will keep you updated and, as always, please send us your comments or questions.

Posted in News by A2IM

As we reported to you previously, the Copyright Office is contemplating increasing the fees to register your copyrights over 80% during a period when copyright registration has never been more important to protect your rights and recover damages. Last week A2IM filed a response to the Copyright Office in opposition to the proposed fee increases.

Posted in News by A2IM

The Dean’s List published an item last week linking to the Fulbright & Jaworski website which noted that on March 28^th the U.S. Copyright Office announced a proposal to increase the fee to register copyrights digitally from the current $35 to $65, an 85% increase. The first question is should you register your copyrights? There is no legal requirement to register your copyrights and you can assert ownership many other ways. For example you can mail a letter to yourself and not open it and use the postmark as proof or go to a notary and get your written song notarized with a date. Despite the lack of a copyright registration requirement, A2IM advises our members that you should register your copyrights. The primary reason to register is if you need to prove ownership in litigation, especially against unauthorized music services infringing upon the work of your label’s artists.  Without copyright registration, a music label or artist will have no standing with the courts and will be unable to sue for statutory damages until the copyright is registered and then the damages will only be for prospective infringements. Another reason would be the pending changes at the U.S. Copyright Office regarding the rights to Pre-1972 Copyrights which we reported to you earlier this year. The pre-1972 copyrights proposal is basically a ‘use it or lose it” situation where you need to keep your music “publicly available” to keep copyright protection thru 2067 (easy enough in the digital age) with a transition period of six to ten years to ensure all materials are available. The onerous part of this might be the initial; and potential renewal, copyright office registration process. A2IM will file with the US Copyright Office against enacting this proposed price increase which will cause a financial hardship upon our community. But before this potential rates increase occurs, maybe you should get an intern in to register the copyrights for your key tracks, especially any pre-1972 copyrights, as a good business practice. Register your song with the U.S. Copyright Office for $35 today.