An all-star lineup of musicians, songwriters, and executives have penned a letter to SiriusXM Radio parent company Liberty Media threatening to boycott the company over its opposition to a copyright law with wide support in the music industry. Paul McCartney, Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, Katy Perry, Charlie Puth, Tom Waits, Carole King, Carly Simon, Pink, Sia, John Legend, Mick Fleetwood, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, Karen O and Nick Zinner, Chrissie Hynde, Shirley Manson, and the Pixies’ Joey Santiago are among the acts who’ve signed a letter to SiriusXM expressing concerns over the company’s opposition to a portion of the Music Modernization Act.
Obviously, given that SiriusXM has a dedicated Beatles station and oldies stations for each decade, a boycott from some of the most popular artists in music history would be harmful to their business. So, what’s this all about? Let’s back up.
The Music Modernization Act is a bill designed to update antiquated US copyright law for the digital era. It’s a large and complicated bill, but put simply it’s designed to improve and streamline royalty payments for songwriters, artists, and creatives. It has also been merged with what used to be called the CLASSICS Act — short for Compensating Legacy Artists for their Songs, Service, and Important Contributions to Society — which would grant federal copyright protection for sound recordings made before February 15, 1972. Currently, protection for anything older than that is left up to the states.
The MMA passed 415-0 in the House Of Representatives and made it through the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as Variety explains, today it’s set to be “hotlined” — “at which point any Senator has 24 hours in which to object to the bill passing out of the Senate without an official vote (Senate leadership does this for bills with high cosponsor counts that they know would sail through if a vote was forced or needed).” At this point the last obstacle to the bill’s passage is opposition from SiriusXM.
Specifically, SiriusXM opposes the CLASSICS Act as it’s currently written and is seeking amendments to the bill before it passes. This has occasioned the aforementioned open letter penned by Ross Golan — a songwriter credited on songs such as Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous Woman,” Selena Gomez’s “Same Old Love,” and Flo Rida’s “My House” — expressing “grave concern” over SiriusXM standing against “the most consequential music legislation in 109 years.” Golan continues, “It’s SiriusXM vs all of us. We can either fight to the bitter end or celebrate this victory together.”
SiriusXM has responded with a letter of their own arguing that their position is reasonable: “Contrary to new reports and letters, this is really not about a SiriusXM victory, but implementing some simple, reasonable and straightforward amendments to MMA. There is nothing in our ‘asks’ that gut the MMA or kills the Act.”
Originally posted on STEREOGUM.COM
