Whether you are a music publisher or songwriter looking to maximize the value of your music catalog, or a producer, ad agency, or internet music service seeking to clear music rights for products, performances, and other uses, the new Fifth Edition of Kohn On Music Licensing offers you comprehensive and authoritative guidance. This one-of-a-kind resource takes you through the various music licensing processes, type-by-type and step-by-step. In clear, coherent language, the author, a seasoned attorney and executive in both the entertainment and high-tech industries, provides detailed explanations of the many kinds of music licenses, identifies the critical issues addressed in each, and offers valuable strategy and guidance to both rights owners and prospective licensees. Kohn on Music Licensing, Fifth Edition: Walks the reader through the history of the music publishing business, from Tin Pan Alley to the user-generated content phenomena of the present. Dissects the songwriter agreement, providing the reader with a clause-by-clause analysis and offering the best negotiating strategies to achieve the best possible outcome for their clients. Analyses the newly enacted Music Modernization Act, signed into law in September 2018, which significantly changed the way music is licensed in sound recordings in the United States. Guides the reader through the complexities of co-publishing agreements, administration agreements, and international subpublishing agreements, with a report on the rapidly changing music licensing landscape in Europe. Takes on the intricacies of licensing music in sound recordings, from the traditional CD format to the newer delivery methods, including downloads, streams, ringtones and ringbacks--including the rates and terms used in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom. Confronts the pitfalls of licensing music for audiovisual works (synchronization licenses) using history as a guide, from the early talkies through streaming internet content. Explores new media and its impact on the licensing process. Technological developments have forced the industry to rethink licenses when dealing with video games, computer software, karaoke, and digital print (including downloadable sheet music, lyric database websites, and digital guitar tabs.. Sizes up the digital sampling controversy and offers up suggestions for negotiating licenses for digital samples. Explores the ever-evolving concept of Fair Use and its application to the music industry. Provides the reader with a look at the landscape of licensing fees, including "going rates" for synch, print, radio & TV advertising, new media, and other licenses, to assist in negotiating the best rates for their clients. Proven tips and suggestions, along with the most up-to-date analysis, are given for the technical aspects of music licensing, from the perspective of both the rights owners and prospective licensees, including How to "clear" a license Advice on maximizing the value of your music copyrights Formalities of licensing Duration of copyright, renewal and termination of grants Typical fees And much more Every chapter of Kohn on Music Licensing has been completely updated in this expanded Fifth Edition. New topics include: The Music Modernization Act, enacted in 2018, which changed the way music is licensed in sound recordings in the United States. Mechanical license fee regimes, including rates for ringtones and on-demand streaming for U.S., Canada, and U.K. Webcasting rates in the U.S., Canada, and U.K. A discussion of the right of publicity in the context of digital sampling. Print License chapter has an updated discussion on adaptation right as well as examines terms for digital print, digital guitar tabs, etc. Custom musical arrangements are also covered. Synch License chapter now covers terms for downloading and streaming of video. Previous Edition: Kohn on Music Licensing, Fourth Edition, ISBN : 9780735590908

In this book, leading scholars analyze the important role played by copyright exceptions in economic and cultural productivity.

A call to action for the creative class and labor movement to rally against the power of Big Tech and Big Media Corporate concentration has breached the stratosphere, as have corporate profits. An ever-expanding constellation of industries are now monopolies (where sellers have excessive power over buyers) or monopsonies (where buyers hold the whip hand over sellers)—or both. In Chokepoint Capitalism, scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer and activist Cory Doctorow argue we’re in a new era of “chokepoint capitalism,” with exploitative businesses creating insurmountable barriers to competition that enable them to capture value that should rightfully go to others. All workers are weakened by this, but the problem is especially well-illustrated by the plight of creative workers. From Amazon’s use of digital rights management and bundling to radically change the economics of book publishing, to Google and Facebook’s siphoning away of ad revenues from news media, and the Big Three record labels’ use of inordinately long contracts to up their own margins at the cost of artists, chokepoints are everywhere. By analyzing book publishing and news, live music and music streaming, screenwriting, radio and more, Giblin and Doctorow deftly show how powerful corporations construct “anti-competitive flywheels” designed to lock in users and suppliers, make their markets hostile to new entrants, and then force workers and suppliers to accept unfairly low prices. In the book’s second half, Giblin and Doctorow then explain how to batter through those chokepoints, with tools ranging from transparency rights to collective action and ownership, radical interoperability, contract terminations, job guarantees, and minimum wages for creative work. Chokepoint Capitalism is a call to workers of all sectors to unite to help smash these chokepoints and take back the power and profit that’s being heisted away—before it’s too late.