NEW YORK (CelebrityAccess) – On May 26, Southern District of New York Judge Louis Stanton ruled to deny the Radio Music Licensing Committee’s (RMLC) petition to combine rate court proceedings with performance rights organizations Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) under a single judge last week, according to Billboard.com. The RMLC immediately filed an appeal on Wednesday (May 31) at the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The radio trade group’s efforts are to combine federal rate court proceedings that will determine how most of the country’s songwriters get paid for airplay.
According to BMI, the BMI Consent Decree nor the Music Modernization Act (MMA) of 2018 justified the RMLC’s joint rate petition, per the Judge’s ruling. Judge Stanton ordered the RMLC’s rate petition against ASCAP to be assigned to another judge and tried separately.
Judge Stanton’s ruling instructs the court clerk to “sever all portions of the RMLC petition which seek the setting by a rate court of an ASCAP reasonable license fee under the ASCAP consent decree and assign them by the standard electronic method of selection of a judge of this court.”
The RMLC’s petition to combine the ASCAP and BMI under one judge who would simultaneously set rates for both performance rights organizations in one proceeding was based on what publishing sources have told Billboard is a wrong interpretation of the MMA.
Having a single judge could benefit the RMLC because it would likely pit BMI and ASCAP against each other. In the past, Judge Stanton has overseen BMI rate trials, and Judge Denise Cote has led ASCAP rate trials. Music publishing executives say that the MMA intended to keep the two-pronged approach for the PRO rate setting but with rotating judges, not just the two who have overseen the proceedings up to now.
“We are extremely pleased that the RMLC’s latest attempt to deny fair compensation to songwriters was dismissed, and that its end run around the clear language of the BMI consent decree and the MMA was properly rejected by the Court,” BMI president and CEO Mike O’Neill said in a statement. “This would have cleared the way for BMI to secure the appropriate value of our affiliates’ music without the distractions the RMLC was trying to create. Unfortunately, the RMLC is again opting for litigation over negotiation, and we will continue to do what is needed to protect our affiliates’ essential contributions to the radio industry.”
