A2IM: American Association of Independent Music

Posted in News by A2IM

As A2IM previously reported, The Obama Administration’s Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (“IPEC”), Victoria Espinel is starting the process of developing a new Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement and on behalf of independent music labels and our membership. A2IM has filed comments outlining our community’s specific needs.

All Music Matters (AMM) has taken a special interest in A2IM’s filing stating, “Their letter to Ms. Espinel does a wonderful job detailing many of the issues that affect independent content owners and creators as it relates to weak copyright protection. Informative and inspirational, it will surely speak to and benefit any independent artist, label and publisher who reads it.” Read the full AMM text HERE.

A2IM’s Letter to Victoria Espinel, The Obama Administration’s Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (“IPEC”), can be read HERE.

Victoria Espinel’s speech at A2IM’s Indie Week 2012 can be seen HERE.

About AMM

Posted in News by A2IM

The Obama Administration’s Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (“IPEC”), Victoria Espinel is starting the process of developing a new Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement and on behalf of independent music labels and our membership, A2IM has filed comments outlining our community’s specific needs.  A2IM’s full comments to IPEC can be read HERE.

IPEC’s agenda states that “by committing to common goals, the U.S. Government will more effectively and efficiently combat intellectual property infringement.” In their agenda they’ve requested comments from the public and interested parties to better shape the Federal Government’s intellectual property enforcement strategy.  IPEC is charged with developing the Administration’s Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement for submission to Congress every three years.

Please don’t hesitate to contact A2IM if you have any comments or questions.  We’ll surely keep you updated on any developments.

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.

Posted in News by A2IM

The U.S. Copyright Office has issued its summary report on U.S. Copyrights which maintains copyright protection for pre-1972 Copyrights thru 2067, as long as they remain available for sale. As we had reported to you previously, pre-1972 Copyrights are currently under individual state jurisdictions but the U.S. Copyright Office has proposed that they come under federal jurisdiction which has created a concern regarding accelerated copyright termination dates.

The Copyright Office released their report on Pre-1972 Sound Recordings and while they do propose federalization, as opposed to keeping them under state jurisdiction, for post-1923 Copyrights the termination date remains 2067.  Pre-1923 copyrights would be limited to a 25 year copyright extension.

The 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 ongoing, copyright office registration process. That said, overall this result is favorable and we’ll see if we need to file comments on our registration concerns.

For copies of the Copyright Office’s executive summary and the complete report see the links below:

http://www.copyright.gov/docs/sound/pre-72-exec-summary.pdf

http://www.copyright.gov/docs/sound/pre-72-report.pdf

Posted in News by A2IM

Last month we reported that A2IM President Rich Bengloff spoke at a Copyright Office hearing at the Library of Congress on Pre-1972 Copyrights. The hearing covered music preservation and copyright expiration dates.  As a number of A2IM members have acquired Pre-1972 catalogs, at the hearing A2IM reiterated its position that pre-1972 Copyrights should continue to be governed under the various state laws prohibiting unauthorized duplication, which state laws grant copyright protect thru 2067, thus giving creators and those that invest in the creation of our culturally diverse music a continued incentive to bring catalog recordings to market because of the ability to earn a return on their investments during the changing music economic landscape.  The full hearing minutes that included Rich are now available here.  Rich’s opening remarks are on pages 30-35 and Rich’s comments are included throughout the minutes as he participated on 5 panels during the course of the day.