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By industry journalist Emmanuel Legrand show blogs at Legrand NetworkThis summer, a group of American songwriters mounted a scathing attack against SESAC, accusing the US rights society of using last minute tactics to derail the Music Modernisation Act, the one piece of legislation that the whole industry has been battling for over the past couple of years. SESAC was pushing for an amended version of the bill that would allow third parties to continue to administer mechanical rights, in order to save the business of its subsidiary HFA.The dispute went as far as songwriters calling for other songwriters (signed to SESAC) to leave the society since SESAC was allegedly working against their interests. Eventually, under the aegis of peace brokers (the NMPA and Senators who were urging for a compromise), the parties agreed to not only a cease fire, but to jointly promote a new version of the bill that would include a provision favourable to SESAC."It was pure appetite for self-destruction."
The point here is not to say who was right or who was wrong, but to highlight the simple fact that the sad war of words was, to say the least, one of the most counter-productive sequence impacting the interests of the US music community in ages. It was pure appetite for self-destruction.It was an unwise event at a time when the MMA continued to faced serious challenges from Sen. Wyden, or SiriusXM, that have the potential to fully derail the over two-year process which saw the building of a full consensus in the industry, a unanimous vote by the House and a flying victory at the Senate's Judiciary Committee. The vision of one side of the industry bickering against another was devastating. There couldn't have been a worst image of the industry than one of divisions, rather than unity.To the foreign observer, it had a feeling of déja vu. In 2005, British record label's trade body the BPI sued rights organisations MCPS-PRS Alliance (as it was then called) about, surprise!, mechanical rates, arguing that the Alliance was imposing licensing rates that were "unreasonable and unsustainable." The irony was that in that battle, the BPI had serious partners n crime in Apple, which was challenging the mechanical rates it had to pay on its iTunes Store, and six other online services.Eventually, in September 2006, all the parties settled and agreed to a new rate. But during all these months the climate in the industry was despicable, with a war of words between the different sides that was clouding any other issue faced by the industry. And in the end, the only people who won anything from the cross-industry carpet-bombing were…the lawyers, as it transpired later that the litigation process cost over 10 million pounds to each party, for a zero-sum result. That money belonged to rights owners, not to lawyers.
