Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) wins landmark victory for songwriters, publishers and composers in the US that will see BMI affiliates receiving 138% rate increase. Southern District Of New York Judge the Honorable Louis L. Stanton on Tuesday issued the decision in favor of BMI in its longstanding rate court dispute with concert and live event promoters and associations Live Nation, AEG and the North American Concert Promoters Association (NACPA).
BMI’s President & CEO, Mike O’Neill released a statement following the credit saying:
“This is a massive victory for BMI and the songwriters, composers and publishers we represent. It will have a significant and long-term positive impact on the royalties they receive for the live concert category.”
He further stated, “we are gratified the Court agreed with BMI’s position that the music created by songwriters and composers is the backbone of the live concert industry and should be valued accordingly. Today’s decision also underscores BMI’s continued mission to fight on behalf of our affiliates, no matter how long it takes, to ensure they receive fair value for their creative work.”
He however expressing disappointment in the length of time the verdict took.
“While we’re thrilled with this outcome, we find it incredibly disappointing that it took millions of dollars and years of litigation to get Live Nation, AEG and NACPA to finally pay songwriters, composers and publishers what they deserve,” he concluded in the statement.
Judge Stanton ruled that the increase must apply to, “tickets sold directly onto the secondary market, servicing fees received by the promoters and revenues from box suites and VIP packages.”
Founded in 1939 BMI is the largest Performing Rights Organization (PRO) in the US. The company represents more than 20 million musical works created and owned by more than 1.3 million songwriters, composers and music publishers including top pop acts like Nicki Minaj, Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne, Maroon 5 and others.
They also represent more than 90 performing rights organizations around the world including Jamaica and the Caribbean and they make up a significant percentage of BMI’s overall revenues according to their website.
A Live Nation public relations officer responded to the verdict by saying, “that the extra revenue going to songwriters will come almost entirely at the expense of artists’ revenue, not the promoters’ own,” per Variety.
“We advocated on behalf of artists to keep their costs down, and managed to hold the increase to less than 1/3 of BMI’s proposed increase,” the Live Nation statement said. “This will cost the performers we work with approximately $15 million a year spread out over thousands of artists, and cost increases for Live Nation directly are not material.”
In any event, this good news for Jamaican musicians comes on the heels of last October’s announcement by the UK-based performance rights organization Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) that over the last 7 years “UK usage of Jamaican recorded music generated, on average, around £500,000 a year for Jamaican performers.” i.e 2015-2021.
The PPL said outside of the U.K. & Jamaica, “Jamaican recorded music across the same period generated, on average, £600,000 a year for Jamaican performers.”
In the statement issued to The Voice UK they indicated that they are working closely with the Jamaican performance rights organization JAMMS to ensure reggae performers and recording rights-holders are efficiently paid.
JAMMS and PPL forged a historic partnership in 2021 that saw a surge in membership in Jamaica.
Evon Mulling Managing Director of JAMMS told World Music Views that since 2009 the organization Jamaica Music Society (JAMMS) has collected a total amount of J$200,000,000 for rights holders in Jamaica. JAMMS has been in operation since 2007 and Mullings said the largest check he has paid out to a single individual is J$2 million.
“Both JAMMS and PPL collect revenues for the use of recorded music on radio, television and in public places, such as restaurants, clubs, bars, retail stores, hotels, and other venues” Mullings stated.
“While the overall industry has also grown over that period, this increase in international collections outstrips the underlying industry growth rate, pointing to the sums that previously may have gone uncollected,” PPL said.
