Copyright Battles Absorb Music Publishers In 2002

Music publishing's battle against Napster may have been won in 2002, but its war against peer-to-peer Internet music file-swapping services raged on.

At year's end, publishers, songwriters, and the music business as a whole were awaiting a judge's decision pertaining to the new battlefield pitting music and motion-picture groups against the combined file-swapping forces of Kazaa, Grokster, and MusicCity.

In September, the National Music Publishers Assn. (NMPA), the Recording Industry Assn. of America (RIAA), and the Motion Picture Assn. of America (MPAA) joined in a motion filed in a Los Angeles federal court seeking an expedited ruling in their ongoing copyright-infringement lawsuit against the three online services, initially filed in October 2001. The plaintiffs sought a summary judgment, charging that the services intentionally emulated Napster in acting as virtual "candy stores of infringement."

In a strong songwriter show of support, the legendary team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller—who were among the plaintiffs—appeared at a court hearing Dec. 2, along with Motown songwriting great Lamont Dozier. A decision by Federal District Court Judge Stephen Wilson on both sides' motions for summary judgment was expected in the next few weeks.

Wilson was also involved in a bid by music and motion-picture companies to sue Kazaa's Australian parent company, Sharman Networks, and will eventually decide whether the company, whose product is exploited by some 21 million users in the U.S., is subject to U.S. copyright laws. Litigation continues, too, against fellow file-sharer Aimster (now known as Madster), with the NMPA and RIAA having accused it of violating a Nov. 4 court order to block the swapping of copyrighted works on its network. A U.S. district court judge has since issued a temporary restraining order enforcing his preliminary injunction against the service, after publishers complained that it willfully disregarded it.

The NMPA, the Harry Fox Agency (HFA), and the RIAA scored a clear-cut victory in June, when Audiogalaxy agreed to halt the swapping of copyrighted works and went legit. And as for the model of illegal peer-to-peer online file-swapping of copyrighted music content, Napster essentially bit the dust. After a federal bankruptcy court blocked Bertelsmann's proposed purchase of Napster's assets, the embattled file swapper agreed to sell them to CD-burning software maker Roxio in November.

In other NMPA/Harry Fox activities, an agreement with the RIAA to provide licenses for use of copyrighted musical works for Internet music-subscription services garnered enormous support from the 27,000 HFA-represented music publishers, paving the way for Internet delivery of hundreds of thousands of licensed musical works. In October, the heads of the NMPA and the RIAA joined those of the MPAA and the Songwriters Guild of America (SGA) in an anti-Internet-piracy awareness campaign aimed at colleges; in September, the RIAA teamed with groups including ASCAP, BMI, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in a star-studded broadcast and print-ad campaign directing consumers not to download songs from illegal file-sharing sites.

Internet-related copyright issues surfaced in Congress, too, which passed legislation in November allowing smaller Webcasters to pay lower copyright royalty fees, following an agreement between Webcasters and the recording industry calculating rates based on Webcaster revenue. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court heard arguments in October concerning the constitutionality of Congress' 20-year extension of the term of copyright included in the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act of 1998, and as 2003 neared arrival, publishers were nervously awaiting the court's eventual decision.

Regarding publishing companies, the year's biggest story came with the completion in November of BMG's purchase of the huge indie Zomba Music Group—whose holdings include Zomba Music Publishing—for $2.74 billion. In another major publishing-company consolidation, Sony/ATV Tree acquired Nashville's historic Acuff-Rose Music Publishing from Gaylord Entertainment for $157 million. And indie firm Peermusic Publishing, whose CEO Ralph Peer earned the independent publisher of the year honor from the Assn. of Independent Music Publishers, acquired the publishing catalog of Toronto-based the Song Corp., one of Canada's biggest and most important music-publishing caches.

Technology Takes Honors

At the performing-rights societies, technology took the honors. ASCAP partnered with interactive radio pioneer YES Networks to create Mediaguide, a jointly owned company that will provide optimal monitoring of music performances on radio, TV, and the Internet using YES proprietary technology. BMI launched Online Works Registration, a new online registration system for musical works developed in conjunction with FastTrack alliance partners.

On the sheet-music front, MakeMusic!, the Minneapolis-based manufacturer of Finale music-notation software and the SmartMusic interactive music-practice system, shut down its Net4Music.com digital sheet-music operation and directed its customers to former competitor Sheet Music Direct—the digital sheet-music e-commerce Web site jointly owned by Milwaukee print music house Hal Leonard Corp. and its European counterpart, Music Sales. And Madison, Wis.-based Musicnotes.com became the exclusive provider of digital sheet music and lyrics for AOL Music, the online music division of AOL.

Execs In the News

Key executives in the news in 2002 included Bob Flax, who was upped from executive VP to first ever president of EMI Music Publishing's U.S. company by EMI Music Publishing CEO Martin Bandier. At Chrysalis Music Group North America, Leeds Levy departed his post as president and was replaced by Warner/Chappell senior VP of A&R Kenny MacPherson.

Peermusic Nashville songwriter Rick Carnes was elected president of the SGA, marking the first time the position has been filled by a writer from outside New York. The guild also made news when a New York Supreme Court judge ruled in favor of songwriters and deceased songwriters' estates, who had filed a class-action suit in 2001 against Famous Music alleging failure by Famous to share half of all net sums received in the exploitation of contracted songs' mechanical rights.

At the New York chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), Grammy Award-nominated Sony-ATV Music Publishing-administered Kazzoom Music (ASCAP) songwriter Phil Galdston was elected chapter president, and in September, Zomba Group of Companies senior VP of West Coast operations Neil Portnow, whose charge had included overseeing the West Coast offices of Zomba Music Publishing, was named NARAS president.

Portnow took part in the Dec. 11 annual New York chapter of NARAS' Heroes Awards, which honored, among others, pop music's ultimate collaboration among composer, lyricist, and vocalist: Burt Bacharach, Hal David, and Dionne Warwick.

After presenter Ann Reinking—who is choreographing the upcoming Bacharach-David Broadway musical—credited the duo's songs with veritably saving her life on more than one occasion, Bacharach made a marvelous comment about how, when he wrote the extraordinary string of Warwick hits with David, he really didn't care a whit about the words, other than that their vowel sounds and consonants euphoniously matched his music. He finally appreciated David's genius, he said, after being overwhelmed by the depth of his lyric for "Alfie."

David, of course, is CEO of the National Academy of Popular Music/Songwriters Hall of Fame, which in June inducted Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson, Randy Newman, Sting, Michael Jackson, and Barry Manilow while also recognizing Garth Brooks, Stevie Wonder, and Carole King. But another song's lyric still rings in my ears, 2/ months after the Oct. 8 superstar-studded Madison Square Garden Music to My Ears concert tribute to Timothy White. The grand finale, with everyone onstage singing Sly & the Family Stone's "Everyday People," really was incredible, what with John Mellencamp straining to not let Sting pass him up in the soul vocals department.

But it was also the song's words—particularly the refrain "We gotta live together"—that resonate so powerfully this particular holiday season.

Tim would have been proud.