Copyright law is already too complicated and frustrating. We need to tell Congress not to make it even more so.

The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that combined the Music Modernization Act with the CLASSICS Act. While the Music Modernization Act generally does a good job of helping songwriters get paid for online streaming, the CLASSICS Act simply creates new barriers for lovers of old music. The Senate’s version of this combined bill, S. 2823, was recently introduced.

S. 2823 would extend some cherry-picked parts of federal copyright to cover sound recordings made between 1923 and 1972, which are currently covered only by a patchwork of state laws. It would force streaming services to get licenses for those recordings, even though all that does is create a new subsidy for rightsholders (which are usually record labels and not artists) and make it harder for music fans to listen to old recordings.

In the case of truly old recordings, finding the rightsholder could be so difficult that recordings that hold a mostly historical value would simply disappear from streaming services, unless one wishes to chance an heir showing up out of the woodwork, bringing a claim, and facing massive, unpredictable copyright penalties in court.

There is no public benefit to this part of S. 2823, so tell your senators to vote no on it by clicking here.

Tell your Senators to vote no on S. 2823

Thank you,

Katharine Trendacosta

Activism Team