MUSIC REPORTS GO DIGITAL

Music Reports Inc., the world's most advanced rights administration platform, is the first company to offer electronic filing of mechanical licenses for on-demand streaming with the U.S. Copyright Office.

Automating the “Notice of Intent” (NOI) process enables hundreds of thousands of new releases to be instantly licensed for distribution. This is significant because until now, there has been no practical process to handle recordings that become available each month for distribution on digital music services.

Under section 115 of the U.S. Copyright Act, notice must be given to the composition owner of the licensee’s intention to distribute the work, and if the owner is not registered with the Copyright Office, the notice can be filed with the Copyright Office itself.

Since copyright owners, including very popular artists, typically register their compositions after the recordings have been commercially released, this creates a potential liability for online music services who want to move quicker to expose new music to the public. Music Reports’ new service alleviates that risk.

“We are very pleased to now offer this commercial-scale solution to the problem of mechanical license clearance in the United States,” said Bill Colitre, Vice President and General Counsel of Music Reports, Inc. “Once again, we are meeting the market with a technology-centric answer to a major administrative challenge in the music business. Combined with our recently-launched Publisher Dashboard and Claiming System, we have created a solution that works for music services and for music publishers.”