Things are kicking off in the complicated world of music licensing in the US, where the Digital Media Association has filed a motion with the country's Copyright Royalty Board saying that streaming music services should not have to pay both mechanical and performance royalties to the music publishers (those royalties being due to different collecting societies in the US, rather than the combined MCPS-PRS over here).
At the moment streaming music services in the US need licensing agreements with the organisations who represent songwriters' mechanical interests, and those representing performance interests, because while the service offers a broadcast style listening experience (subject to performance royalties), technically speaking a mechanical copy of a song is made in order to deliver the stream (even though the copy is also deleted as part of the process) hence the argument by the publishing sector that a mechanical royalty is also due.
The publishers are expected to fight DiMA's motion, and to that end Sony/ATV Music Publishing yesterday instructed the Harry Fox licensing agency to stop licensing any of its catalogue to streaming services. The move, which will also affect so called 'limited play' downloads, could affect a range of US online music channels, including RealNetwork's Rhapsody, Napster and those operated by back end digital music service MediaNet (the new name for MusicNet, by the way).
Sony/ATV are seemingly pissed off at DiMA because many of the association's members have previously entered into agreements with the Harry Fox Agency which essentially allowed them to run streaming services for next to nothing, in terms of mechnical royalties, on the condition they would pay royalty fees in retrospect once an industry wide agreement on rates had been agreed. New moves to now have the mechanical royalty abolished completely in the streaming sector are, Sony/ATV insiders say, "underhand".