WASHINGTON D.C. (CelebrityAccess) — Digital royalties collection society SoundExchange has launched a new service allowing rapid search of an online database of more than 60 million address unknown Notice of Intention to Use (NOI) filings submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office.
An NOI is a notice sent by a potential user of a musical work informing the copyright owner that it intends to distribute the musical work pursuant to the compulsory license set forth in Section 115 of the Copyright Act. The proposed user must send an NOI to the copyright owner before or within 30 days of making, and before distributing, any phonorecords of the work. If the music user sends the NOI to the copyright owner, it must account and pay statutory royalties to the copyright owner for all uses of the song.
There are currently more than 60 million address unknown NOIs on file with the Copyright Office, and digital service providers (DSPs) filed an average of 2.5 million address unknown NOIs each month in 2017. However, in order to search those addresses previously, users needed to download compressed data files, unpack them and then search.
Now, with SoundExchange’s SXWorks NOI Lookup, a music publisher or songwriter can perform a free-of-charge search an online database to identify potentially unclaimed revenue.
“Music publishers and songwriters finally have a way to gain visibility into address unknown filings made by some service providers using their songs,” said Michael Huppe, Chairman of the Board of SXWorks. “Publishers and songwriters can search the NOI submissions via a simple web-based interface. The service makes a complex process much more transparent, supporting our goal of trying to improve how the music industry operates.”
SoundExchange says they plan to develop new premium features for the Searchable NOI database later this year.
https://www.sx-works.com/noi-lookup
