Music Publishing News Roundup 2.25.2015: BMI, Pandora, Snapchat, YouTube & More
BMI, Pandora, Snapchat and Freeplay Music vs. YouTube are featured in this week's music publishing news roundup.
The BMI vs. Pandora court battle continues this week in New York City. As these two entities duke it out, the Department of Justice is reviewing requests from PRO’s and music publishers to remedy the consent decrees it has imposed on ASCAP and BMI since 1941. The current rates are 1.85% of revenue Pandora pays to ASCAP and the 1.75% it pays to BMI. Since 2011, publishers have been insisting for PROs to allow the withdrawal of digital rights in order to negotiate direct deals with digital services and this is currently an ongoing objective.
Snapchat CEO may be exploring music, according to a recent talk at the University of Southern California on Wednesday. According to Spiegel, “after communication music is the highest frequency behavior on your phone,” therefore making it an interesting opportunity to potentially pursue. This follows the new Discover feature which allowed users to view Snapchat stories from brands such as Comedy Central, Vice, and Cosmopolitan.
Freeplay Music sued several YouTube multi-channel networks Tuesday including Disney’s Maker Studios, DreamWorks and Big Frame over copyright infringement. The music-licensing company’s audio fingerprint technology detected several infringements on accounts of each of the companies mentioned above. These lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and are yet to be resolved.
