first they said the radio artists relationship is, quote, simil similar buy yotic. but they are different because radio is free until they remembered that internet radio is free but still pays royalties. then they said a royalty will put small stations out of business until we offered the smallest of stations a flat royalty rate of as little as a few bucks a day. then they said the free market would take care of the issue. until they opposed the free market royalty act that would have created one. then they said it was a taxer said it wasn't. they have run out of arguments and time. the white house, the copyright office and political groups ranging from the aflcio and the naacp to americans for tax

reform in tea party nation all agree with us. while radio touts a nonbinding resolution, congressional leaders from both parties are working on real legislation to resolve this issue. any copyright performed simply must include a radio performance right. to resolve this and other issues, we support several thoughtful bills. this would insist if broadcasters value the content they must value the content of others. this w0u8d remove the loophole. now i had time for a unified holistic approach to music licensing and time for a music omnibus bill or music bus for short. where kwoip write review under way, we need our industry in congress to be visionary and created a unified approach for

the future of our business and the music bus idea is really simple. fair market pay for all music creators across all platforms. and a music only hi bus bill need not wait for the entire copyright act to be advised. congress registers maria polenti noted these issues are ripe for resolution. mr. chairman, a legal framework that includes compulsory licenses, government rate courts and dissent decrees diminishes the framer's vision of exclusive rights. if musicmakers must be subject to these restrictions let's assure them that the result will represent what a free market would have provided. we're not asking for special treatment. we're simply asking for what is fair. fair market pay for all music creatortion across all platforms. a simple concept. a single bill.

a just framework for music licensing. thank you very much. >> mr. miller? >> good morning. i started playing piano when i was 11. by the time i was 15 i was writing bad songs and playing them with my even worse band but we were just kids so the people cheered if only out of pity. i went to college to study music theory and composition and graduated with a bachelor's degree from eastern kentucky university. that simply meant i was overqualified to play in a honky tong where i had been singing. i was formally educated in

classical music composition while writing country songs on the side and these are two very different things kwording to my professors. my parents were thrilled when i finished college and mortified when i saved $1,000 and immediately moved to nashville. for years i wrote songs. hundreds of songs. i played in bands and took temporary jobs to pay the bills when needed. i studied the songs i heard on the radio and began meeting and learning from the songwriter who is wrote them. on september 1st, 1996, i became a fulltime songwriter and then the real work started. 11 years, from the day i moved to nashville it took 11 years to have i hit song on that rating and since then i've been lucky and blessed and i've had hits and continue to earn a living by walking into a room where there is nothing and making up something out of thin air. something that's real. something that's tangible. something that creates commerce. what i make is the seed that fuels the entire music business. it generates thousands of jobs

and shapes the culture we live in. let's face it, nearly everybody loves music. but i'm one of the remaining few. since i started 9 of 10 of my colleagues don't write songs as a profession because their royalties no longer feed their families. this is an unjust system that must be changed. rules established in 1909 largely to prevent one player piano company from becoming a monopoly required me to grant a compulsory license paying 9.1 cents for the sale of a song which i split, regardless of what the marketplace might say my song is worth. that's mouth much of a pay raise when the original 2 cents paid in 1909. then the royalties on my song performed on a internet radio station are set under dissent decrees from world war ii. the judge that determined those rates are forbidden to consider what the marketplace says my songs are worth so i only

receive thousands of a penny for those performances. i appreciate the luxury of the internet as much as you do and i'm a slave to my smartphone as anyone. but the current system has devalued the musical composition to the point where songwriters are being crushed. it is bad enough that it's so easy to steal the music but illegal framework that allows songs to be streamed for nearly free will destroyed the livelihood of the american songwriter if it's allowed to continue. the songwriter equity act has been introduced to allow the copyright value in the marketplace to be considered in rate-setting procedures. i want to thank doug collins and hakim jeffries and all the cosponsors of the legislation. while it is a great start, bolder revisions to the current copyright law are necessary to establish true equity for today's songwriters and composers. it is time for congress to eliminate the compulsory license and time for congress to

eliminate or drastically alter world war two era consent decrees. and they should dispute. resolution committees. future licensing and collection agency should be able to compete with those are large market shares. there should be true transparency throughout the entire collection and payment process. i am america's smallest small business. i sit down and make stuff up. i do not succeed if my songs are not recorded, sold and played and when i the get paid i pay self-employment income tax. with the money that remains, i raise babies. i buy bread, gasoline anniversary flowers, cough medicine, braces and guitar strings. i can make you laugh or cry. i can make you do both inside the same three minute story. that is the power of music and it all begins with the song. congress, today i ask you on the

behalf of my family and the families of all american song writers, to change the archaic government if regulations that prohibit us from pursuing a fair market opportunity for the songs we create. thank you mr. chairman and members of the committee. >> thank you, mr. miller. mr. israel lightite? >> good morning. >> i would rather give lee five more minutes to talk but as the principal frayed association of music publishers and their songwriter. in the united states we thank you. the committee is well aware there are two different copyrights involved in music. the one for the underlying musical composition which is the half of the music industry i represent, and the separate and distinct copyright for any sound recording of that song. what is striking is just how different necessary two copyrights are treated under the law and through government regulations. first, copyright law contains antiquated regulations that unfair liddy extort the value of

a songwriter's work. the copy wrooit of a song is a property right and should not be regulated by the government unless there's a compelling reason to do so. songs should be valued in the free market just like sound recordings. second, if there is to be regulation, at a minimum, songwriters deserve to be paid a fair-market value. there is no intellectually honest objection toes point. third, congress should reject any attempt to expand compulsory licenses. any additional regulation could have long-term harmful consequences for creators. songwriter's attempt to earn a living through three primary means. recan kwal reproductions, public performances and audio visu visualati visualativisual this is a compulsory license that dates back to 1909.

this was i world war i era law, songwriters are denied the right to negotiate the value of their intellectual property in a free market. in 1909 the rate for mechanical licensetion was set by congress as 2 cents per song. today's mechanical rate would be more than 50 cents if adjusted for inflation. remarkably, the current statutory rate stands at 9.1 cents and for those who tire of hearing that statistic, imagine the fatigue of songwriters being paid something less than a fair-market value. this number is using an antiquated below standard when setting rates known as the 801 b standard. a standard that's harmful to creators. as former register of copyright argued so eloquently, while the license may have served the public interest well with respect to the music reproduction industry after the turn of the century, it is no

longer necessary and unjustifiably aggregates copy wrooit owner's rights today. fortunately legislation has been introduced to address this inequity and i thank representative collins, jeffries and other members of the subcommittee, for supporting the songwriter's equity act. public performance royalties represent the largest income stream for songwriters. the songwriter public performance right is inherently a free market right. not regulated by law. but because the department of justice imposed consent decrees on bmi in 1941, incredibly, those consent decrees are still in effect today and they do not sunset. under these world war ii era consent decrees, songwriters and publishers may not negotiate the value of their intellectual property in a free market. instead, the federal judge in the southern district of new york dictates how much a songwriter is paid. last week the department of justice announced it is undertaking a review and we hope

they'll act quickly to ensure songwriters can receive fair market compensation. synchronized music is the third revenue for songwriters including using music in movies, television shows as well as new reforms including music videos and youtube. this is a free market right not regulated by law. it is not regulated by consent decrees. because the sync market is a free market, it is the useful barometer for assessing the fair-market value of songs. not surprisingly, given both copyrights are negotiated in a free market. the dmon industry practice is to pay both copyright owners under the same terms. there's an amazing amount of digital content available to consumers on itunes, amazon store, movies, books, video games, magazines, television shows, recorded music, they are all available and all of those copy writes are negotiated in

license in the free market. only the content produced by songwriters is uniquely singled out and subject to heavy regulation. on behalf of those songwriters, i ask you to let them be paid fairly by letting them be free. thank you. >> thank you. mr. knife? >> thank you. chairman, ranking member and vice chairman marino and members of the subcommittee, i thank you for inviting me to testify here today. my name is lee knife and i currently as the executive director of the digital media association. or dima for short. dma is a nationally trade ta association recognizing the leading players in the digital music marketplace. you're probably familiar with many of our larger members which include companies like amazon.com, apple itunes,

google, youtube, microsoft and rhapsody. but there are several additional companies we represent that play an equally important part. little more than a decade's worth of time the role our companies have grown to play within the music industry is simply amazing. with respect to consumers, our ingenuity has provided fans with access to new services and offerings that satisfy almost every consooefbl price point. from online music download stars to on demand streaming to add support einternet radio and mor recently cloud-based offerings. our efforts have meant the creation of new revenue streams that have handsomely rewarded content creators and their agents for their creative endeavors. sound exchange recently reported a 312% increase in the total sum of royalties it paid to recording artists and labels in

2012 versus 2008. this is thanks to monies paid by services operating under section 114 compulsory license many of which we represent. with respect to songwriter incomes, the two largest performing rights organizations recently reported record-high revenues of $944 million each in 2013. meanwhile, csac, the smallest of the three pro's has witnessed the revenue grow from $9 million in 1994, to $167 million last year. all of these accomplishments, i'm pleased to report, have come as the members increasingly have been able to successfully convert would-be pirates into regular users of legitimate royalty-paying music services. this task hadn't been easy. and the current music licensing regime we're asked to navigate makes it no less difficult. it's safe the say if we were

writing from a blank slate today no one would develop the current system we're asked to operate under. in the remaining minutes of my time i want to offer a few thoughts on what essential elements should be included in any future music licensing reform package followed by a quick evaluation of what i think two recently introduced legislative proposals constitute bad public policy. first, a 21st century alicensing regime properly suited to handle the needs of an innovative u industry and a consumer base that's consistently demanding legal access to content when and where they want it, has to include one, efficiency. two, transparency. three, safeguards that adequately protect licenseees from anti-competitive behavior. four, a level playingfield among simply-situated competitors and finally, five, it should shield

listenees from excessive risks when the licenseees are acting diligently and in good fate. greater efficiency has two immediately apparent benefits. for licenseees it guaranteed new products and services can be brought to market sooner which helps us in our fight against online 'pirates. for creators, greater efficiency will mean less of the royalties we pay for the right to perform or distribute content will be used to cover administrative expenses. last year alone, more than $200 million in royalties paid by music licenseees was redirected to cover pro operating expenses. greater efficiency would mean fewer middlemen and more money in the pockets of songwriters. the importance of transparency is obvious. if service providers can't find the rightful owner of copy wrooit protected works they quantity license and pay for them which means the creator misses out on the royalty and the general public is deprived of the benefit of enjoys his or

her creativity. for creators, greater transparency provides full visibility into the total payments made by music services and the way those payments are administered by the agencies and affiliates that the artists rely on to administer their rights. this, in turn, will allow the artists to make better informed decisions about which agents they choose to employ to maximize the net payments they receive. in the area of competition, the need to protect licenseees from anti-competitive bakp anti-competitive now. some, particularly in the context of licensing of musical works, have taken issue with this notion and even asked that certain requirements imposed under the department of justice's consent decrees be modified. before taking this considerable step we would strongly urge policymakers to review the history of the consent decrees which is attached to my

testimony and, also, recent federal court cases which have made note of continuing anti-competitive behavior, carried out by various parties acting on behalf of music publishing industry. further on the subject of competition, a hallmark of a good competitive landscape requires a level playingfield be established among similarly-situated competitors. for several years now, webcasters have had one simple request. namely, the same eighth setting standard, the 801 b standard currently used to determine performance royalties for cable and satellite radio, be used to establish rates for internet radio. record labels have relied on the 801 b standard since the '70s. all -- >> your taime is expired.

>> i'm sorry. that's fine. i'd just like to close by saying, we should consider the collective issues that i raised when we consider an omnibus approach to the copy wrooit reform. >> thank you, i appreciate that. mr. chairman, ranking members with subcommittee members thank you for inviting me today. i'm honored to be here. i'd like to thank congressman collins for his sponsor ship of the songwriter equity act. it's being well received by my members. my name is michael o'neal and i'm president and ceo of bmi. i've been working with songwriters, composers and publishers and with businesses for over 20 years while at bchl bmi founded in 1939 as a not for proat this time company and bmi today is one of the world's leading performing rights

organizations. under copyright law whenever music is played in the public the creators of the my sib like lee thomas miller, are entitled to be compensated for their work. we represent over 600,000 song yours, composers and publishers and license their over 8.5 million works to businesses across the country. we also work with societies all over the world wherever american songwriters' music is used to make sure they are paid for it. today through the marriage of technology and artistic creativity, digital media has truly democracy uz fized the i have and knocked down barriers and created more opportunities for creators before. while this is promising as these new innovations come out bmi's mission is and raulz has been to ensure our songwriters and publishers are paid fairly for their creative fairly but that

mission is being frustrated by an out of date regulatory framework. bmi like our competitor, is governed as you heard, under a consent decree. almost all the of those rules date back to 1966 and beyond. essentially, we're locked into a model that might have been appropriate when the beatles first came to america. that might have been appropriate when you had to get out of your chair or your sofa to turn the channel on your television. but it is not appropriate in today's modern world. there are four modest proposals to bring bmi and the world of music licensing into the 21st century. first, publishers do not currently have the flexibility to decide when they choose to utilize bmi to license their works and when they can license those woerks exclusively for themselves. bmi's rate court has held that publisher's must choose tweenl gi between giving their work to bmi

for all uses or not joining bmi at all so a publisher that wants to license one service on its own without the involvement of bmi must pull out from every use of bmi recreating what bmi does across the 600,000 businesses we license. publishers should be allowed to decide what businesses and what rooits th rights they wish to convey and which businesses and rights they want to license themselves. this will require a change to our consent decree. second, we need to be able to license more than just the performing right. under copyright law businesses often need mum tichl rights especially online. why make them seek out multiple people to get those licenses? given the expertise and experience and the relationships with both the business world and the creative world and the world of music, i believe bmi's position to be that one-stop

daub shop, a single death naigs whe -- destination where they can do it and the bmi courts should be modernized. we propose replacing the court with an arbitration model and the result we're seeking would be faster, less expensive and be more market responsive for all parties. finally, the consent decrees should sunset on the basis for those decrees no longer exist. as bmi's relative strength in the marketplace is reduced by many nentrants and new participants, we should be allowed to operate on behalf of our writers on the same terms and conditions as our competitors do. so in conclusion, bmi songwritertion and publishers face a competitive landscape. in order to meet those challenges all participants need to provide greater flexibility

and operate more efficiently. when songwriters are unable to make a sustainable living we're all impacted. the department of justice is undertaking a look at our decree and we're very excited and look forward to working with them to make those changes. on behalf of all of bmi songwriters across all 50 station, i thank you for your time. >> thank you, mr. o'neal. mr. hoyt? >> good morning, members of the subcommittee, i'm will hoyt and i'm the executive director of the television and music license committee. the tmlc represents some 1200 local commercial television stations concerning music performance rights. and has on behalf of its members, involved in negotiations, arbitration and litigation for decades that the performing rights collectives that represent composers and

publishers. based on tmlc decades of experience interacting, and more recently with csac the consent decree restrictions must stay in place and consideration should be given to extending these types of restrictions to any entity that aggregates or bundles the power rightfully vested in individual copyright ownership by congress. local television stations broadcast network, syndicated and locally-produced programs. in most syndicated programs stations do not select or control the music used in these programs but are required to broadcast these programs precisely as produced and recorded by third-party producers. and then required to license the public prormtss embedded in the program. the station license these performances through our organizations and because these organizations have separate and distinct repertories, each station must take a license from

each pro. hoerkally, these pro's have only issued licenses that permit the use of all of the aggregated copyrights in their reptory without regard to the number of performances made by local stations. this is the so-called, blanket license. decades ago, they entered into consent decrees with the department of justice in order to settle antitrust action commenced by the department. these consent decrees have been instrumental in providing stations the right to reasonable license terms in light of the exto ordinary market power that they enjoy by virtue of their aggregation of performance rights and incidents on operating those. independent federal judges have rules, for instance, under the bmi consent decrees, a station is entitled to a limited reduction in blanket fees where some of the rights to perform music in the station's

programming were licensed directly from the copyright owner. these judicial rulings have helped to facilitate more direct licensing within the industry and, therefore, more competition. these alternative licensing arrangements and fee structures were denounced by bmi and fought for in litigation by stations and would not have been possible without the consent decree provisions. as explained in my written testimony, csac is not subject to these restrictions and is the subject of a class action antitrust suit brought by local television broadcasters with support from the tmlc. licensing practice demonstrate what any performance rights collected or other performance organizations that aggregates copyrights will do without the type of restrictions contained in the consent decrees. the federal court denied the motion for summary judgment in the class action antitrust case brought by television. the judge observed it is undisputed that csac possesses

monopoly power in the relevant market and described the evidence of actions taken by csac in recent years that are specifically banned by the bmi consent decrees. attempts by tlc to gain access to music performance information maintained by pro's about the music contained in television programs have often been denied on the grounds that this information is supposedly, proprietary, a general policy that requires collectives to publicly release usage information on which user fees and royalty distributions are based would help to promote a more competitive market. we stand ready to cooperate with creators, collectives and other users to find common grounds on legislation that would promote competitive market values for the right to perform musical works. that is, legislation that will fulfill the constitutional

provision to enhance the public interest. thank you all very much for your time. >> thank wow, mr. hoyt. mr. griffin? >> you're the clean-up hitter, mr. griffin. >> i'm used to doing that. so my name is jim griffin. i'm media tech nolgt gist. 20 years ago when i was the manager of genfen records so it's been 20 years. and there are so have many issues that are at the forefont of today's hearing and i'm fascinated by all of them but i'm going to focus on only one issue. and that is the growing need tore registries for databases. comprehensive databases of

information related to creative works. and not just music. so my remarks while they focus on music really span the field of copyright. and i'm going to make just a half dozen fundamental points. the first point is that our goal should be to make it fast, easy and simple to pay for music, movies, books, art, other expressions of ideas, such that the market can work with the efficiency. if we make it fast, easy and simple to pay, more people will. secondly, we are need comprehensive public directives. it is unnecessarily difficult to pay or license from those difficult to identify or locate. we must work to record, enumerate and update public databases that give creators pay and works licenses let alone provide attribution and create

an historic record of our culture's heritage. two years ago, i okay authored a scholarly paper for the entertainment law journal we entitled "rights enumerated and rooits disrespected. the title tells the story. and that's all of the story you need to know without rights enumerated they are very difficult to respect. my third key point is that we should include all creators when we build these databases. [ inaudible ] >> mr. griffin, pull the mic a little bit closer to you. >> yes -- oh. [ inaudible ]

is this better? okay. i so two minutes to repeat. i'm the panel's geek. the media technologyist. >> the fourth key point i'm going to make is that we need guid's. that's globally unique identifiers. no less than a bank check or a credit card. we have to have a number for each song, each book, each thing that we are trying to track. simply using the title or the artist's name is not enough. there's so many different ways

to spell the creator's name or the title that it makes matching, treatmently difficult and, yes, it's true we a lie upon semantic matching absent globally unique identifiers. globally unique identifiers are easy to explain. just like the vin number on a car. without a vin number we cannot accurately describe it. and when we have these globally unique identifiers, we need to have them in a public database that's accessible to anyone to read. and we do not now have appropriate databases for music, photos, graphicsable with to cite a few examples where it's n done at all. this has many impacts. the key concern is that absence the use of these unique global numbers, money guess appeartion along its path to its intended receiver. where does the money go? it goes to pools of unattributed income divided through

marketshare formulas at the organizations that collect the money. and not to the specific creator for where i it is intended. fifthly, i will say there's a market solution and it does not require the government to step into to fix it, the government should provide a wholesale core database that encouraging retail activity at the edge of the market no different than what happens with internet domain names. a wholesale market at the center but it encourages a retail market solution at the edge. sixthly, i will finish by saying that the problem is growing exponentially in front of us. in the year 2000 we saw 50,000 sound recording albums released a year. by today's standards, we go through that in four days on sound cloud on january 4th. and sometime on january 1st, youtube sees that much content. we have a moving target. if we expect respect for rights,

rights need recordation and enumeration and this issue cuts across all concerns, regardless of how you license. you need to keep track of the stuff that you're licensing. thank you. >> thank you, mr. griffin. as we examine you all, we try to stay within the five-minute rule as well so if you work with us on that i'm told that chairman has a meeting ta he must attend. so we'll let him kick it off. >> mr. chairman, thank now your your forbearance and to all of our witnesses, thank you. the clock is ticking. i've got four questions four all of you, that's 28 answers. they need to be really short. most of them yes or no. number one, would a more free market model be a better alternative than the licensing system we have today? >> yes, it's a fair market that we need. in other words, we have to pay. >> mr. miller?

>> yup. yes, that's exactly what we're here to ask you for today. >> mr. us us rail light? >> yes. >> mr. knife? >> we need a fair market. >> mr. o'neal? >> please, yes. >> mr. hoyt? >> in you decline free market as a competitive market, yes. >> mr. griffin? >> as much as possible, but copyright is tough because you start without one. >> don't i know. number two, former register of copyright, mary beth peters suggested the union of music rights so union services get started. would you support such a music rights organization model rather than the current system? >> complicated question. would depend on what that looks like. what i would say is our community cannot subsidize the establishment of new businesses, however, off of our backs. >> mr. miller? >> we support anything that

revalues the copyright. >> mr. israelite? >> we wouldn't support the other addition of other layers of administration but we support anything that leads to efficiency in the marketplace. >> mr. o'neal? >> yes. >> mr. hoyt? >> we don't see the necessity for a government-regulated single unit and we believe that the competitive market will work in the long run. >> mr. griffin? >> i favor the consolidation that you described. >> all right. here's the tough one you got to do some mental calculations quickly. what's the appropriate split between the songwriter and a performer for their work? and should congress determine the split or should someone else? and if so, who? >> nobody's getting rich from 2

new services. we have regulatory bodies at this point who are making that judgment. if it's done on a far market value, then that's what's important. that each of the creators have. one is fair in the marketplace. >> mr. miller? >> essentially, it's two different things. the underlying words is the words and notes and then the sound recording. mr. israelite would have to speak to the complications of that. >> all right. mr. israelite? >> a free market would answer that question and when there's the syncation right it is generally split 50/50. >> mr. knife? >> we're generally agnostic as to what the split would be but we're encoastlined to move towards a system where we would only va to pay one person and others would define what the split is among their rights. >> mr. o'neal? >> i have songwriters who are artists and ych songwriters that are just songwriters and they argue that point often.

i think the free market would us matly determine it. >> mr. hoyt? >> if you can created a truly competitive market, that competitive market will determine the rates. >> mr. griffin? >> i don't think you should compel a particular solution or percentage. i think you should allow the partition to reach an agreement but if they cannot, there needs to be an alternate arrangement such that there is payment. >> congratulations. we're 24r50u 21 of the 28 questions and we still have a green light. this is a little broader but be quick. what are the less visual issues that congress should be aware of as we review our nation's music licensing laws? >> i think we have our you are hands full with the ones that are visible. i'm happy to talk about that privately. >> mr. miller? >> the current state of the digital world is so debilitating to the song writing community i assure you we can't see beyond the obvious. >> mr. israelite?

>> there's been quite a bit of focus on the market power of lee and his fellow songwriters as opposed to the market power of the people we license to so i don't think google and amazon and apple need protection in the negotiations with songwriters. 123450 mr. knife? >> >> i think some of the issues that aren't being addressed are issues regarding the way money throws through the system. there are alarge amounts of royalties being paid by member companies and yet we still hear complaints from songwriters that they're not getting paid. >> with the consent decree in 1941 augmented in 1966 24r are many issues below the surface we don't have tile for. >> perhaps my opening this up will cause you or others to comment as we move forward. mr. hoyt and mr. griffin, if i may, mr. chairman. >> in the interest of public policy, i think you have to really look at the balance gene

the benefits of aggregation and the potential elimination of price competition. >> mr. griffin? >> i think that the very difficult question to answer definitively and i will simply say is this we have to hayne entertain some kind of monitoring in order to ensure balance. >> going back to your point here. mr. chairman, thank you for your forbearance. 28 answers in 5.5 minutes is good. >> you almost prevailed over the illuminating red light. you gaerly made it. >> the distinguished gentleman from new york, recognized for five minutes. >> thank you with mr. chairman. you endorse a comprehensive unified legislative i approach to music licensing. we sometimes hear -- one of the advantages are is there harms to doing it piecemeal and -- >> i think we see the results of the bandaid approach. over the careers, we've cobbled together these various different rights from different

generations and when we arrive at where we are today, they just don't work. and to do it piecemeal at this point when we have a great opportunity to make a difference, you hear everybody on the panel clearly saying that we have to make some changes. i've heard most of you saying that some changes need to be made. we need to grab that opportunity. it's not certainly going to be easy. it's complicated but that's really the way to go. >> is there harm to doing it piecemeal. why do we need a comprehensive approach? >> that's the way to go in the long run because piecemeal has not served us well. >> we also sometimes hear that a royalty performing artist from amfm radio would benefit the biggist of stars and not smaller artist. what's your response and are there studies showing this? >> the performance right, the way it works is that it would go to the artist. and the artist, whether it's a

large artist or small artist, really is not relevant. the fact is, when somebody's work is played on the air, and they are the performer, they ought to be paid. there's no example in american history of business that profits from the work of others without paying them. >> actually, there is. it's before the civil war. ? mr. israelite, within the compulsory music licensing system, one goal is to mirror the free market and maximize fair-market value. how do you envision achieving that for all the music reyay tors and can we do it in a comprehensive fashion to we don't leave anyone behind? >> about a quarter is regulated by a compulsory license with a bad rate standard. our first preference is to get rid of the compulsory license. but the next best thing and the thing that, perhaps, is more doable is to at least, give us a rate standard of willing seller and willing buyer. if that were the case i can promise you that $1.29 download

a songwriter would make more than 9.1 cents. in absence of a free market opportunity, at least let the judges that set our rates try to approximate may it what would happen. >> what did you say 19092 cents is worth today? >> with inflation its 50 cents. >> it's 9.1. >> mr. knife? under current law there's a different rate-setting standard that's used to establish rates for cable and satellite than for internet radio. how has this impacted your members? >> clearly the biggest way it's affected them is that they pay considerably higher rates. the willing buyer willing seller standard has led to higher rates. >> so apparently some of your competitors have an advantage over you in creating parody in leveling the playingfield? >> yes. >> why should we do the 801 b

instead of willing seller? >> a couple reasontion and the first and foremost is the willing buyer and willing seller standard is relatively new. in the short tenure of its application it has resulted in disastrous results that they saw fit to intervene on. whereas the 801 b standard has been in existence for a far longer period of time and hadn't resulted in any difficult -- >> quickly ask if mr. israelite would agree with that? quickly? >> the people that use songs may find it offensive to pay a fair market rate for them but the fact that that would be a newer standard is no argument why a songwriter doesn't deserve a fair market rate. >> back to mr. knife, given potentially thousands of rights that must be cleared for a single song, to come to production, is a free and fair market system -- in a free and fair market system, how do we

make it work? in a free and fair market system how do you deal with thousands of rights for a particular song? >> those issues were addressed a little bit by mr. hoyt and mr. griffin. we have to balance the interests between an efficient marketplace which might include the collectivation of rights licensing with fair royalty rates. so we have to balance toes issues and make sure we're controlling those monopolized interests. >> mr. griffin, my last question, obviously. you said it's unnecessarily difficult to pay or license. we must work to created a comprehensive registry system. my question is, first of all do you mean going forward or backward, how much would such a system cost? how long would it take to set up? who would pay for it and why? >> users should pay for it. it doesn't cost anything because it's profitable. if you look at the internet domain name. >> it wouldn't cost anything to set up in massive i system?

>> you already have a cost to the copyright office. if you make us a market-based system you invite the go daddys of the world in to help you fill and populates that database and they make money doing so. so if you build a market-based system of registration, i believe you'll have the outreach. >> it pays for itself. how long would it take to set it up? >> i think it could be done within a year. >> going forward only or going back? >> it needs to go forward and backward and that allows anyone to register any claim. >> and you think you could register any song going back to the song of the bible? >> no problem. i think truly, it should happen that we register our heritage. >> let me ask, anybody else want to comment on the practicality of that? >> i think you can probably do it perspectively but doing it back years, i think, would be extremely difficult. i think you have to leave the current system in place. >> i wouldn't --

>> mr. o'neal, a global reptory database that was contemplated to be built overseas that had cost, estimates between $30 million and $100 million and it fell apart after three years of service. >> my time is expired. thank you very much. >> i thank the gentleman. mr. israelite, is the collins/jaef ris bill a comprehensive u solution to your problem or is it a first step? >> it's a very important first step. so for the 50% of our industry that is regulated by outdated dissent decrees from world war ii, it would allow the federal judge that sets the prices to consider the evidence in the marketplace. on the mechanical side, while it doesn't settle us into a free market it lets the three judges that sets the prices for songwriters try to approximate may it what would happen in a free market so a very

important -- >> how does it affect over the air and digital broadcast sners. >> for digital broadcasters, the mechanical part of it wouldn't affect them at all. and for the other part of the bill that deals with performance, that deals with performance, the truth of the matter is that all it would do is allow the parties to make arguments to the federal judge. so we think that it's really not a very significant burden on any broadcaster to have to deal with the evidence of what rates would be in a free market when arguing to the judge that eventually is going to set the rates anyway. >> i was going to discuss the scope -- the split -- but i think you all pretty well responded to that with the chairman's comment. mr. griffin, would you elaborate on the importance of fair market value for all music performances? i think you all pretty well did that close to unanimously in response to chairman goodlatte's question. >> it was hard for me to hear the end of your point. >> elaborate on the importance of fair market value for all music performances, and do you

feel that royalty standards are harmonized or need some massaging? >> i do think that music should receive its fair market value. there's no question about that. i think it's essential that in order to do so we track music and its owners such that we can identify them and those who participated in them so we can get them the money they deserve that the market provides. today that money often disappears on its way to the creator. >> thank you for that, sir. mr. miller, i've been asked to put these four questions -- three questions to you -- that may or may not be applicable to today's hearing. do you know bluegrass? do you know tom t. hall? can you play the fiddle? >> well, that's ironic. i do. i grew up in kentucky playing the fiddle. i came to nashville as a fiddle player. my first job in nashville was playing fiddle for tom t. hall. i lasted three days and he fired

me. >> i take it you do indeed know him? >> very well, sir, thank you. >> i think the chairman pretty well touched the other question that i had -- thank you for your response, mr. miller. i'll tell you, i will identify and divulge the identity of the person who asked those questions be presented to you. gentleman, thank you again. i yield to -- who's next in line? miss chu for five minutes. >> thank you so much. as co-chair of the congressional creative rights caucus, i firmly believe that all artists should be compensated and that's why i am a co-sponsor of the songwriters respect act. it's not fair for songwriters to be paid on average 8 cents for every 1,000 streams of their songs on digital radio. it's not fair for legacy artists who own pre-1972 sound

recordings to be paid nothing for continuous streaming of their songs when entire digital stations are dedicated to the music of the '40s, '50s, and '60s. and let's not forget that recording artists are paid nothing for countless plays of their songs on a.m./f.m. radio. last week i hosted a music roundtable where i heard from local songwriters, reporting artists and challenges they face trying to make a living in today's music market. one of the most legendary song writers there told me about the challenges that he has having to work at age 72 because he's paid very little for songs that he's written that play on digital radio despite the fact that he's written and produced over 54 number one motown hits and also number one billboard recording artist. so today's hearing comes at a crucial time for our music creators. these royalty disparities are in need of attention and ultimately a resolution so we can continue to have a vibrant environment that fosters creativity and growth.

i'd like to ask mr. israelite and mr. miller, because of a statutory mandate, songwriters and publishers are forced to grant a license to anyone who wants to use their musical work for reproduction and distribution in exchange for paying a royalty set by the government. and the rate was first set by congress in the early 1900s at 2 cents per song. today, at 2014, it remains painfully low at 9.1 cents per song, and let's not forget that this 9.1 cents is split by the songwriters and publisher. let's assume the status quo prevails. what does rt world look like in five years for music publishers and songwriters? and how can songwriters who are not also artists make a living off of the very low rates that accompany streaming services? >> well, in five years if i'm fortunate enough to still represent songwriters and publishers, what i fear is i

wouldn't have a lee miller sitting next to me because he wouldn't be able to make a living as a songwriter. it's inexcusable that you can't get a fair market rate for what the property value is in a song when someone purchases a song. so we're very thankful for your sponsorship of the songwriter equity act. it's a very important step toward getting to a place where a songwriter can still make a living when successful. >> mr. miller? >> well, the reality is our songwriters association looks at the numbers that we've lost 80% to 90% of the song wherewriters the last 12 years. five years is a long time. i don't know. i fear what that would mean. certainly if we do have status quo and we ease more into a streaming model, it seems as catastrophic as we would assume that it is. what's interesting is my wife told me this morning that late last night, my 11-year-old, noah, asked what happens after today? are all of daddy's problems

solved? which caused my wife to call and say, i should understand more than i do, but answer that question, what happens after today? does it get better? to her i have to say i don't know. it's a hard process. obviously a complicated process. i'm not the legal guy here. i look for words to rhyme with love every day. until yesterday i had never used the word omnibus, okay? that's the truth. but i will say this, i hope that you will take all of the facts into consideration and understand, an american profession is in a lot of trouble. we're hurting. >> i'll give you a shocking statistic about the low rates paid by one particular company, pandora. i believe one of the founders has been a witness before this body. last year that founder cashed out more in his stock ownership than every songwriter in the united states combined was paid from pandora.

that speaks to how low the rates are because we don't have the right to negotiate the value of them in a free market. >> mr. portnow, could you talk about the role of producers and engineers in creating music? why is it important that we highlight their contributions as we re view the licensing scheme? >> sure, happy to. i know a little bit about producers and engineers because when i was a young man in a band and playing music, i had the experience of having a recording contract and having a producer in the studio. so the analogy -- then i became one. i was a record producer on staff for rca records for years. the producer is more analogous to what we would call a director in the film and television business, so he or she is the person that puts it all together, everything from booking the studio to finding the songs, to creating the sound and the environment of those recordings. we wouldn't have recordings without them. they're not currently covered in the statute and that's important

because they, too, need to be compensated fairly for the work that they do. we are in negotiations from the recording academy with our friends at sound exchange. we think we have some good beginning solutions for that and i'd be happy to talk about that further beyond the hearing today. >> thank you. i yield back. >> gentle lady's time is expired. the gentleman from texas. >> thank you -- >> i stand corrected. gentleman from pennsylvania. >> thank you, chairman. i normally don't do this, but i have a brief statement that i want to make before i ask a couple of questions. although there is a number of issues to work through in this copyright interview process, music licensing may be one of the most complex subissues. i know firsthand because i've been meeting with all the stakeholders involved in this in d.c., new york, los angeles, and most importantly, in my

district. one thing is for certain, no one is happy. today the current laws in consent degrees that stakeholders must operate under to negotiate their copyright licenses and royalties are simply not working. i've also found this to be an incredibly divided group of stakeholders who all seem to show some opposition to find commonalities to work toward a solution, and it's high time we need to work harder to finding a middle ground. omnibus pieces of legislation, maybe you can use this as just some words in your lyrics, mr. miller, omnibus pieces of legislations tend to omit, omit all of us. see, i put that line in there toward the end. many of you have heard me say this, but when it comes to creating a solution, those of you in the private sector need to get more involved in the discussions for a solution because if you can't come up with anything, you are really not going to like what we legislate.

i'd like to see all sides of the music licensing issue come to the table to come up with something that works for all industries involved as well as for consumers so that we don't have to revisit this time and time again. and i look forward to working with you and i'll say this in the beginning, if any of you, many of you have been coming to see me and talking about the issues and if you care to continue that, my door's always open. mr. israelite, i have a question for you, please. you stated in your testimony that your clients' revenues are significantly below what they would be in a free market. can you elaborate on how you came up with your figures and why you believe in getting rid of section 115, moving to a free market would be the best solution? >> thank you for the question, and i completely appreciate your opening comment, and i would pound out that when a songwriters has been underpaid

for over 100 years, any solution that involves fair market compensation is going to be opposed by anyone who pays for music, and so it's understandable why there's such deep divisions. the reason why we believe that a fair market standard would lead to a significant increase in songwriters compensation is if you look at the 75% of our industry that is regulated, for the 50% that is the consent decree with performance right, we know that the consent decrees lead to significantly lower rates than what would happen in a free market. we had a recent window of opportunity where there were free market negotiations for very similar radio services with apple than happened with pandora, and the result was staggering. on the mechanical side, the difference between a willing seller/willing buyer standard and 801-b standard, the copyright royalty board has spoken to that issue in the past and indicated there is a significant gap between the two standards. so just by allowing us to have

fair market rates in that 7 75%f our industry, we know it would lead to higher rates. if you look at the 25% of our industry that is unregulated, the rate strictures are significantly higher. so i think that there's no doubt that would happen, and it's understandable that anyone who's been benefiting from this government regulation by not paying songwriters fairly would fight hard against any change that would lead to fair market compensation for songwriters. >> mr. knife, although some stakeholders are urging we move to a free market system, i know others are very leery of this. can you explain why in this particular industry the free market approach might be questionable? >> again, i think it has to do with the idea that some of the principles that i announced, we're talking about a marketplace that needs transparency and efficiency. free market system would necessarily not be very efficient. when mr. israelite talks about the synchronization license he's

not talking about licensing synchronization rights on a whole scale basis of 30 million songs or more at once. synchronization licenses happen individually. a song gets licensed into a movie or a television program, and it's a rather slow and laborious process. so we have to balance the ideas of making sure we have an efficient marketplace that might include the collectivization of rights licensing and making sure that that collectvization isn't used as an undue market power. >> i yield back the remainder of my time. >> if i could quickly respond to that while many synchronizations are done on an individual basis, that premise is completely wrong. the largest music acquisition source on earth is youtube. youtube needs a synchronization license. it is completely licensed, it happened in a free marketplace and the rates, by the way, are significantly higher than other

forms of competitive services that are regulated by consent decrees and compulsory licenses. >> gentleman's time has expired. respond briefly. >> i would say our experience in television is that when you do locally produced programming in a -- what we would consider a relatively free market, competitive market, those rates we think we have a lot of evidence that those rates are much lower than they are coming from asgap. >> gentleman's time has expired. the distinguished gentleman from florida, mr. deutch, you're recognized. >> you said a free market system would not be efficient. the system we have now it seems to me is very efficient. it is efficiently -- it is efficient at putting an awful lot of songwriters out of work. that's the system that we have now. so just before heading to my questions, i have a question for you. we talk a lot about percentages. there are 90% fewer songwriters.

how many songwriters were there 10 years ago, 20 years ago, versus today? how many americans had to give up their profession because of the system as it's evolved? >> we can only speak to music row in nashville. a very tight community. we have the luxury of kind of knowing everybody and to some degree. we certainly figure based on prior to consolidation of major publishers, you can kind of quickly look at the possibility of 3,000 or 4,000 writers making a living doing this down to 300 or 400. >> which i think is a really important point for us to remember as we have this debate. the hearing is really important and the issues are complex and it's hard for us to figure out how to go forward, but without picking winners and losers. i was intrigued, mr. knife, but what you said earlier. you said, we would all agree, no one would develop this system if we were starting from a blank slate. that's absolutely right. you also spoke about the need for a level playing field which, again, i think is what's really driving or should be driving

this whole -- this whole debate -- this whole process that we're engaged in. and so if we start with that, what is a level playing field, i just would point out a couple things in the status quo that i think are unfair and don't represent a level playing field. maintaining different performance rights standards for radio and digital and its digital competitors seems unfair both to the innovative digital services and to the performers whose music is no less valuable when played over the air. that strikes me as not a level playing field. in the same vain holding music recorded before 1972 should be treated differently than recent music is disrespectful to the classic artists who have contributed so much to america's musical legacy. but most importantly, that makes no logical sense to different shating the two. that's not a level playing field. and i would also agree with mr. israelite's point songwriters are too often given the short straw in this. i'm proud to serve with marsha

blackburn. i think the songwriter equity act that would allow a rate court to consider other royalty rates as evidence for establishing the digital rate and adapting a fair rate standard, those are means, again, to leveling the playing field. we can't -- this isn't -- what we have now isn't what we would have started with. if ultimately the goal is to level the playing field let's actually talk about how we do that. mr. portnow, you ran through some of the unfair arguments that have been used to defend the status quo in performance rights versus terrestrial radio. for me the question isn't do we make the change, but can we really defend the system without making that change? and again, i -- mr. knife, i go to you. is it fair to your members who are mandated to pay for the music that they play that broadcasters don't pay for the music that they play? >> i think it's probably not fair, as a general principle, but i leave it to this body to determine who should be paying royalties and who shouldn't while we're leveling the playing field. yes, we're asking for that kind

of comprehensive review. >> it seems like we're saying -- we're telling you new technology you pay for both rights because you're just starting out. but a service that does the same thing over terrestrial airwaves instead of the internet so we shouldn't change it that is my problem with so much of this debate, the sense that because things are the way they are that makes them so. that make them sack ro sink. that's why broadcasters shouldn't have to pay a performance right. that's why we continue to rely on decisions from the 1940s and as amended in the '60s. those are the issues we have. mr. portnow, actually mr. miller, let me go back to you because i hate to -- i hate to think that you would spend a second after this hearing trying to rhyme anything with omnibus. let me tell you, there's nobody who would buy that record, listen to that record, least of all members of congress.

let me just ask you, if you could -- you've talked about what this has meant in nashville. and i thought the story you told about your exchange with your wife was really powerful as well. can you just give a little more of the -- what this whole debate actually means to you and the thousands of americans who can no longer earn a living because of this system that we continue to have in place that needs to be changed? >> well, the competition to write a hit song is tough enough. i mean, it's hard to write a song. it takes a long time to learn how to do this. we understand we're competing against the best in the world and it's fine because we go in every day and learn our craft and we slug it out. the problem that we're up against now where even when we do have a hit song, it may not mean anything. but yet millions and millions and millions of people are consuming that song, acquiring that song and listening to that song and singing that song at their weddings and their kids' graduations. i'm not really sure what we're supposed to do with that.

i'm very perplexed at the idea that we need to help out the entrepreneur who wants to start a business by giving him the product. i suppose if we gave the general store owner, asked the farmer to give the corn and potatoes for free, he would have more luck succeeding in his business, but i'm not sure what that means to the farmer. and from the way we look at it, we're running out of farmers. you know? so that part of it is very frustrating. on the other hand, all of my colleagues are right now sitting in a room not thinking about any of this. they're concentrating on how to write the best song they possibly can to get on the album to get on the radio. and really first and foremost, that's what we think about. we don't think what it's going to pay or who's going to cut it. all of our energy goes into writing the song because it's still art. >> thank you. >> if i could take just a moment to respond to the point about songwriters? >> very briefly, mr. knife, time has expired.

go ahead. very briefly. >> thank you very much, sir. i was just going to say, we keep hearing there's less and less songwriters based on the economics of this environment, et cetera, but i think in bmi's own press releases they have indicated that their membership has increased by 100% between 2003 and 2013. i think ascap has similar growth figures. and so i'm not sure where the idea that we're losing songwriters is coming from. >> may i respond to that? >> yes. >> we have grown in the number of songwriters. the advent of the internet has helped us sign songwriters online more than ever before. the question of how many songwriters are still getting paid, is that number growing and that is not growing. >> i thank the gentleman. gentleman's time expired. gentleman from texas, mr. farenthold. >> i would like to take a minute just to say a word about the -- our previous questioner was asking just because things are the way they are.

well, businesses count on things being the way that they are. the local radio station is counting on the things continue to be the way they are when they decide whether or not to give the morning dj a raise or go out and buy a new transmitter. so as we change these rules, we've got to be very leery of the fact that different companies throughout the country have invested and made business decisions based on these rules. so we've got to really make a clear and convincing case for that. now i'm going to get off my soap box. well, maybe not. i'm going to ask mr. portnow a question. i'm a former broadcaster, so i'm pretty simple -- sympathetic to -- simple and sympathetic to the fact that it is a tough struggle for broadcasters now, the same forces that your industry is struggling with in new distribution mediums and figuring out how to get compensation. there's no way a radio station

is going to get compensation from pandora. so they're facing a tough challenge. you list a litany of reasons why they're not different from some of these, but i do point out that there's a historic -- radio is highly regulated. limited resource. limited bandwidth. you've got basically unlimited room for expansion in new programs digitally. so i just wanted to point out there is a uniqueness there and a synergy that radio stations have provided in allowing new music to be exposed. it's different now when you can customize almost down to the song what you listen to on the internet. it used to be the record labels and music publishers would pay folks to go try to get radio stations to play songs. so we've got to keep that history in mind. anyway, i want to go on now to bmi.

if we allow publishers to choose what they license to bmi, how do i know what i'm buying from bmi, what license i have and what i don't have? in a recent ascap pandora trial, a number of individual publishers withdrew licensing rights for internet services in an attempt to negotiate more favorable royalties outside the consent decrees. when pandora refused higher rates proposed they asked for a list of work owned by those publishers so they could pull them from their playlists. the publishers and ascap, your competitor, refused to provide a list of such works. this left pandora with the option to pay the price proposed by the publisher, not pay the price and face infringement litigation or stop playing all music altogether. how do you answer that when you're asking for some change

there that we deal with this issue? >> thank you, congressman. i'm a former broadcaster also and i understand where you're coming from. maybe that's why i'm seated between mr. hoyt and mr. knife, now on both sides of the equation. i can't really comment on what was done by my competitor, ascap. i can comment on what bmi has done. i got done with testimony in our pandora trial and the same question was raised to me and we provided the information where necessary and where our customers told us to provide the information. as far as providing the information or transparency as we like to call it, the department of justice, the review of our consent decree, this is a big subject that they're looking at and we're willing to explore that with them. we've spent 75 years at bmi building that business. that expertise, that data. and we like transparency. our writers demand transparency. that's how we pay them. what i don't think is

appropriate is to give that same data we've spent years and years gathering to give it to our competitors to build their business and i think we'd fight against that. >> how do you feel about mr. griffin's guid proposal? it used to be you could go look on the label of the record and it would say ascap, bmi, and have the artist's name printed. a lot of times in digital stuff this isn't even available in the metadata. >> i think it has merit. bmi and ascap have formed a venture called music mark we're reconciling databases and with marrying with our partners in canada the performing rights organization there to get authoritative data. i do think the industries are moving in that direction. >> mr. griffin, i really do like the idea, but you really think it could be done in a year? >> sure. here's the irony, we've already got the guids. we're not recording them, we're not putting them in a database, we're not making them available

to the public. and why? what kind of market could we possibly have without the information? it would be like a stock exchange without the listings. that's where we're at. >> i see my time has expired. >> i also want to say, youtube is completely licensed. and it's not. it's licensed with regard to members but not licensed in regard to small, independent medium sized players who youtube can't find to clear the content. and that's obvious because the content that has no ads wrapped around it is all unclear because they can't wrap ads around that which they haven't cleared. an enormous amount of their content is unlicensed precisely because they cannot find the owners. >> can i make a comment on mr. o'neill's answer? the -- so that you understand, we have been trying to get transparency from the ascap, bmi for years. we cannot get that transparency. they refuse to give information to us.

it is my view that until that information is made public, all the details made public, you cannot attain a competitive market and it -- despite -- if you notice, mr. o'neill's answer was ascap, socan and bmi. that's not the users. we don't get to participate in that. we offered to invest in a series of trying to get more cue sheet information which is what we have for television. they refuse to allow us to participate in that whole project. so to the extent that there's a transparency issue, i think it is as much the collectives as it is anybody else. >> the gentleman's time has expired. the distinguished lady from california, miss bass, is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and ranking member. i would like to address the justice department's announcement that it will review the consent decrees that govern the pros. i know some of you feel that these consent decrees are antiquated and some think we should get rid of them altogether. at the same time i also

recognize as indicated by the judge's decision in the recent pandora/ascap case, there's some who feel these consent decrees are in place for good reason and should remain. regardless, i think we with have to ensure that music marketplace is sustainable and works for creator, platforms, and consumers so as the doj conducts its review. i wanted to know if the panel can tell me what it wants to see from the doj and what it thinks they can do to ensure songwriters are protected, the legitimate marketplace is protected and the system works for all parties? i know that's a lot to ask, but maybe we can just kind of briefly in my time go down the -- go down the list. would you like to begin, mr. griffi griffin? >> i'm going to defer. this isn't my issue as much. >> okay. >> i think if you look at the most recent antitrust class

suit against sesac brought by television broadcasters, you will see the absolute necessity of having consent decrees in place. what happens is under the current practices and law, the collectives are allowed to aggregate copyrights, individual copyrights and refuse to sell them any other way than on a blanket basis. we have a significant problem in modifying consent decrees because in the long run it will run into major antitrust problems. >> okay. thank you. >> i believe that there are many things that need to be addressed in our consent decrees. i actually believe that consent decrees should be sunset and done away with permanently. mr. hoyt earlier commented on a direct license and a marketplace that led to lower rates. it only led to lower rates because the publisher or the writer still didn't have the power to say no. they still weren't able to get outside of bmi's regulatory framework to see what a free market could have negotiated, would have negotiated because

that buyer, if they didn't agree to the price, could have still went back to bmi. and that was the ceiling. they could have never gone below the ceiling or above the ceiling. that's the framework we're trying to do. we're trying to give the marketplace, the songwriters and the publishers, the power to go out and make their own deals and to see what a true free market will hold. >> thank you. mr. knife? >> it's still early. we're still evaluating what our position might be with regard to the doj's announcement, but i think it's safe to say that when you have a marketplace that is entirely controlled by three players, two of them being rather significant, some type of control is necessary and so i think we would probably pursue the application of the consent decrees in some form. >> mr. israelite? >> these are the longest running consent decrees in existence. in 1979 the justice department adopted a policy of no longer having consent decrees that don't sunset.

this decree never sunsets and hasn't since 1941. to the point of marked concentration, one of the most important issues in this question is whether a rights holder can pull things out of the collective and go into a marketplace and we're being told no. that is completely antithetical to the purpose of the consent decree. so they want to complain about having three powerful organizations, but they want to deny the ability of a rightsholder to leave them and further take the market into a more decentralized way. so, there are so many things should be changed. no reason why ascap and bmi shouldn't be able to license different types of rights. no reason why a rights holder shouldn't be able to leave for a limited purpose if they choose so. and the most egregious thing is there is no reason why a licensee should be able to use the music by simply asking -- >> okay. >> -- without there being even

an interim rate set which takes the incentive out of negotiating the rate. >> thank you. mr. miller? >> every argument and point i've made is due to unnecessary government restrictions on the songs that i create. i believe doj is decades overdue in making some of this go away. >> thank you. mr. portnow? >> yeah. what i think is clear is that consent decrees as currently written don't result in fair outcomes for songwriters and should be modified and recording academy will be filing our comments directly with doj on this issue. >> okay. and my time left, does anyone else want to respond? yes. >> i'll add because i deferred, i think that this is a situation much like that that sports faced when john kennedy introduced the sports marketing act of '61. allowed, baseball, basketball, football, hockey to work together, owners, referees, players, in order to license. we face an extraordinary time

here where people are sharing the content in the main to get around licensing and where people are sharing it's appropriate to allow the industry to work together to address that for licensing purposes. so i would lean toward more freedom with regard to those consent decrees. >> thank you. >> please don't forget, the licensees are the ones that benefit the most from the collective license and so while they may complain about having to negotiate its value, the truth is, is that licensees are the ones that benefit the most from having the ability to have the licenses collected. >> i think there are two different opinions on that. i will leave it at that. >> the congresswoman's time has expired. thank you, congresswoman bass. the chair recognizes the gentleman from georgia, congressman mr. -- excuse me, mr. collins. >> thank you. >> doug. that's what i was going to call you. >> i answer to one of them. any of them. thank you so much. this as many in this room know this is something that is close to my heart and also the work that we are doing and i think --

i appreciate everyone on this panel. but i do have some questions and i want to go back because in the end, before i ask any questions, i want this -- my views on this come from one thing. that when we talk of intellectual property, musical rights, we talk about a dream, a hope, or an emotion. those are all valuable property rights and they need to be compensated fairly in a place in which we can do that. the numbers in mr. israelite's written testimony point to the fact that additional music services paid songwriters and publishers less than they paid for the sound recording. mr. knife, do you think that a sound recording is 9 to is times more valuable than a musical composition? >> again, i think my trade organization and most of my members are agnostic on the issue. we really don't have a view as to whether or not the songwriter or the song is any more valuable than the sound recording.

what we'd like to see is an efficient marketplace that allows us to acquire both rights at a reasonable rate and let the parties who have interests behind that determine what the appropriate split is. >> but you at this point from this testimony today opposed to moving to a willing buyer/willing seller standard? you're opposed to some of these things that actually would move us to there? >> i'm opposed to a willing buyer/willing seller standard that would unfairly continue to fragment the licensing landscape. >> that's not agnostic. that's having a belief in one view. >> i'm sorry. i naught your original question was whether or not i had a view as to what the split would be between the sound recording and the composition. >> the actual question was, was it more valuable than not? i just followed up on what you said. mr. israelite or mr. o'neill, would you like to respond to that? >> sure. it's not surprising that people that pay for music would find it inconvenient to pay for under a standard.

we look at this in a two-part question. for a service that uses music what should they be paying for content? we are completely aligned on that question that music has value and that the total amount paid for the content is something that a free market should decide and should be significant. then you get to the second question which is how you divide that revenue. and the current system is so out of whack that while in every other country in the world, radio money is generally divided 50/50 or better for the songwriter and publisher, that in this country you have two things. one, broadcast radio doesn't pay anything to artists and record labels which is wrong. and secondly, for digital radio, you're seeing split divisions as high as 57% to 4% which is just insane. and the only reason that can happen is because of the different rate structures and regulation that's put on the copyrights. >> just to add, i agree with what mr. israelite said. and also to hit the willing buyer/willing seller free market concept, i believe everybody

benefits from a free market. the songwriters, the composers and publishers and businesses because a free market breeds innovation. a lot of the topics we talked about today would have to come about because of the competitiveness of a free market. >> mr. israelite, i want to follow up on something. you talked about client revenues being significantly below than in the free market. for the record, do you have evidence that supports that conclusion? i have another question so if you could quickly answer. >> sure. i'll offer two specific pieces of evidence i mentioned earlier. with regard to mechanical rates, the difference between an 801 b standard and not even in a free market but at least a willing seller/willing buyer standard you could look to previous copyright royalty board decisions where they commented on the difference between the two rate standards. in one case suggested that a willing seller/willing buyer standard was worth more than twice as much as the 801-b standard. and with regard to performances, several of us have talked about

that limited window where publishers try to withdraw the digital rights, were later told that they couldn't. in that window, there was a free market negotiation with apple radio. that negotiation, it was reported, presented a result that was more than twice the value of the consent decree results. i think it's absolutely undeniable that these two types of government regulations significantly hurt the value of our copyright. >> mr. portnow, real quickly. do you think the committee should move forward on updating our music licensing laws independent of a copyright act rewrite? or in conjunction with? >> we are suffering for the fact that we haven't upgraded and brought ourselves into the current environment, so we believe that the music concept is wait to go. we can get there in various different ways. the bottom line is the free market raises all boats.

>> thaurng you. i think the biggest thing here we're dealing in something in which i want this committee and the leadership of the chairman and others are looking for. we're dealing in past many years, we're looking at what it will look like in 10 to 15 years. this committee has to take that up. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> could i make a comment on there have been several suggestions that we operate in a free market and the free market is the way to go. just so everyone understands on this panel that we do not believe that we are operating in a free, competitive market in television. one of the things that ascap said in their noi to the co copyright office, a seller's ability to refuse to sell is a market requirement for a market transaction. on the other side of that issue, a buyer's ability to refuse to buy is a key requirement for a market transaction. we don't have that freedom, especially in syndicated programming. >> gentleman's time has expired. the distinguished gentleman from new york, mr. jeffries. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank the panelists for their presence here today and for their testimony.

mr. knife, let me just begin with you. i believe in your testimony, certainly in your written submission, you indicate that the songwriter equity act and respect act take us in the wrong direction, correct? >> yes. >> and you indicate that these two pieces of legislation seek to create a music licensing framework that cater to the unique interests of a limited group of stakeholders. correct? >> correct. >> now, the limited group of stakeholders that you refer to are songwriters, correct? >> it's songwriters and their collectives and record labels and performing artists and their collectives, yes. >> okay. now, in the music ecosystem that exists, you've got recording artists, correct? >> yes. >> publishers, true? >> uh-huh. >> broadcasters? >> right. >> you've got satellite radio, correct? >> yes. >> internet radio?

>> yep. >> okay. you've also got songwriters, correct? >> uh-huh. >> now, aren't songwriters fundamental to that music ecosystem we just went over? >> absolutely. >> okay. so legislation designed to provide them with fair compensation, that's not a tangential legislative joyride, correct? that is an effort to deal with fair compensation for a group of individuals central to the music ecosystem, isn't that correct? >> i disagree. i think it continues down the road of what mr. portnow has complained about here, which is the kind of piecemeal approach to updating copyright as opposed to a wholistic view of making sure that we have all of the concerns that are -- that have been expressed here today addressed comprehensively. >> okay. but i think we would all, perhaps, agree that a comprehensive approach and i

believe testimony has been rentered to that effect by a wide variety of people with different opinions, is the preferred way to go. we've got some inequities in the system. and i'm trying to get an understanding if you believe there are inequities in the system. songwriters are essential to the music ecosystem? we can agree with that, krcorre? >> yes. >> are they currently compensated in a fair fashion? >> obviously songwriters don't think they are but i think there are a lot of issues attended to that. as i testified to earlier, there are inefficiencies in the system where my member companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars indeed probably over a billion dollars a year in royalties for musical works yet we still hear complaints about songwriters at the end of that system not being compensated appropriately. >> okay. >> i think that requires us to look at the entire system and not just an individual approach. >> okay. i think there's reasonable evidence on the record, congressman collins referred to some of it, to indicate that songwriters are not fairly

compensated under the current system. and perhaps the reason that occurs is because we are not operating in a free market context. true? mr. o'neill? >> yes. i agree with that. >> okay. now, you indicated, mr. knife, that there are inefficiencies if we move to a free market context. is that correct? >> no, i didn't say there were inefficiencies. what i said is that there is a large potential for inefficiencies and what we have to do here, what this body should be trying to do is striking a very, very delicate balance between the efficiencies that are necessary for large-scale music licensing, versus the potential for market abuse by creating collectives that allow the negotiation of -- for large bodies of work. >> who could potentially abuse the system in the context of a free market? i'm struggling with

understanding your position in the context of the history of the republic which is that a free market has led to innovation, creativity, prosperi prosperity. 200-plus years of record evidence in the united states of america, that a free market system is not inefficient, it's efficient when properly regular lated. who is going to abuse the system in the context of a free market designed to provide songwriters with reasonable compensation? >> well, i think we see that with the consent decrees. we've heard a lot of talk here today about how the consent decrees are decades old and they haven't been updated et cetera yet we have a rate court decision that was rendered within this year earlier this year, that seems to indicate that a lot of the behavior that the consent decrees were intended to oversee and to regulate still occurs.

so i think there are opportunities for collectives to engage in anti-competitive behavior. and that's one of the things we have to look out for. >> i think the perfect example of that is csack and its actions since 2008 in the television industry. if you take a close look at that, you will see that -- i do not disagree with you, by the way, if there is truly a free market. but that it will be efficient. >> let me also note -- i know my time has run out -- but in the context of anti-competitive behavior, right now we've got ascap, we've got bmi, we've got sesac, correct? and the supreme court or courts in this country have consistently stated if you have three entities engaged, three enti entities, you do not have conditions for anti-competitive behavior to exist. and that is what is exactly exists currently in the music industry if we were able to move to the free market standard, and i yield back. >> mr. chairman, sesac is not

here to defend itself but quickly, you have an organization that probably has significantly less than 10% of the market and yet you have accusations that they somehow have such concentration they need regulation. i think that's a ridiculous proposition. >> i have to respond to that -- >> the gentleman's time has expired. mr. hoyt, very briefly. >> i just wanted to say that it doesn't take very much in terms of copyright aggregation to be in a monopoly position, and if you read the decision by the young judge on the summary judgment motion that sesac made, you will find that he very clearly believes there is at least a potential -- we haven't proved it yet -- but there is a potential for violation of the antitrust law. >> a single copyright by its definition is a monopoly. >> gentleman's time has expired. the distinguished gentle lman from california, mr. issa recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm glad that the last words i heard were that the copyright is a monopoly.

i am pretty sure that the restraint of trade is not the intention of copyright. at the time of our founding i think it's pretty clear that the goal was to get authors and songwriters, obviously, but authors compensation to induce the creation of these useful arts. nowhere was restraint considered to be there, so lts the idea that there's only one seller of an asset does not a monopoly make. any of you, you know, antitrust attorneys here? i'd love to have one. let's just -- >> i dabble. >> okay. well mr. israelite, i'm glad you're dabbling. because i can't think of a song -- and i've got some songs i just dearly love -- i can't think of a song that i can't live without in favor of millions of others, hundreds of thousands at least. the fact is that songs are in competition and the author and

the performer are simply people in competition to sell their wares who look at this as how they get their wares to market. now don't strain your eyes, mr. hoyt. this is that sort of complex of if i've got a musical work and i'm a publisher or songwriter or i'm the label and artist, the -- how i get to what with whom, and it blows up on additional pages. it's a powerpoint you don't ever want to spend that much time on. so i've been listening to everyone talking about free market and the chairman of the full committee has absolutely said he wants to do comprehensive reform for a reason, which is, it needs it. every one of you has a vested interest in some part of the status quo and every one of you is railing against some part of the status quo. mr. israelite, i think some time

ago -- i'm chairing a committee next door, i'm double taxed or multitasking -- but when i was here before i pretty much i think i heard you complain about how much money pandora's founder got when he cashed out. >> no, i was not complaining about how much he made. i was complaining about that amount compared to the total amount paid to songwriters. i want him to make more money but i would like them to pay songwriters fairly. >> that's a good question. if you look at the revenue being received from sirius xm and revenue from pandora, it's not insufficient if you compare it with all of a.m. and f.m., right? >> you must divide between the money paid to record labels and artists to money paid to songwriters and music publishers. if you look at the totality of money paid from our performances as i stated earlier, it's about half of our revenue. i believe it is significantly undervalued because of the way that the consent decrees work. >> well, let's get back to that.

real marketplace, doesn't it start off with the identity of the true owner before sublicensing? isn't that the first question, is who owns the rights to the, if you will, the song, and who owns the right to the performance? and isn't that pretty opaque today? mr. griffin, you seem to be chomping at the bit. even though you're a technology expert i'll let you answer. >> fair enough. we live in a time of tarzan economics. we're moving from one vine to the next. the old vine was music for the product. you had to clear the rights before you sold it in the store. in the new world, it's almost like car accidents. the use of music has become mr. hoyt points out sometimes his broadcasters aren't even sure what they're broadcasting because it comes from third parties. new music services allow people to upload songs for which they become responsive. >> okay, but my question -- famously i told eric holder here he wasn't a good witness because he didn't seem to ever answer the question asked. you're getting there. >> yeah, but -- >> the question that i asked --

>> michael roberts. >> -- is isn't there an opaqueness to who the original owners are? >> no question. that i -- >> so it -- wouldn't one of the things from a technology standpoint and from a reform standpoint be that there should be transparency as to who owns the rights and, of course, that's a lot of people in some cases and it's only one person in some cases. and then transparency as to who has taken on that right? so the original owner, the access to the contract that gives a third party rights, shouldn't that be transparent and wouldn't that be the beginning of empowering both the willing buyer and the willing seller to have the opportunity for the reforms that some of you are talking about? >> that was my -- >> i see a lot of heads yes. i'll start with you. >> my opening testimony was that we should build directories of these things and we should go further than the owner because the performers have a downstream remuneration right. >> i was talking of all -- all the beneficial owners.

>> i can answer your question in one word, absolutely. >> mr. o'neill? your silence is golden. >> no. i believe that, you know, the blanket license has served radio since the dawn of radio. >> yep. >> radio doesn't pay a cent to the performer. they've been served well. go ahead, mr. knife. >> i have made a lot about the needs for transparency and also for efficiency and higher transparency necessarily leads to greater efficiency. if we had transparency about rights at the very primary level, that would necessarily lead to a lot more efficiency in the system. >> anyone else? >> the best way to get transparency is to put us in a free market because then you will have an incentive if you want to license your copyright for it to be known. there's an assumption in your question that somehow a copyright owner couldn't say no. they couldn't decide that i'll create a copyright, and i'll keep it to myself. and i don't want to license it. that is a right that the

property owner has. >> okay. mr. o'neill was cut off a little unfairly. if you could just let him answer whatever he had, i'd appreciate it, chairman. i have no further questions. >> thank you, congressman. personally i think we have a lot to lose at bmi with a free market. but we have a lot to gain also. we're allowing our publishers to go out to license directly or to license exclusively. and people said shouldn't you be scared of that, mr. o'neill, shouldn't you be worried about that? but i think we would retain them. we'd have to be competitive. we'd have to be innovative in a way that would be different in tomorrow. so that's all i wanted to say. >> mike deserves a lot of credit for that position. it's a forward-thinking position. >> gentleman's time has expired. thank you. the distinguished lady from california is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and actually i think this is one of the better panels we ever had on this subject and anybody listening to this group. although we don't necessarily

know the answer, we know what the questions are. that's a big advance. i sometimes think if you just follow the money, it helps you understand what's going on and we're looking at mr. miller who has a legitimate desire to be paid for his work, mr. portnow who represents many, many other people in that same situation. just some statistics. it's my understanding that, for example, bmi reported really record high revenues last year of 5% increase over 2012 revenues, and if you take a look at revenues going to bmi just as an example, in 2003 it was $629 million, last year $944 million. that's a 50% increase in revenue into bmi. you take a look at streaming internet services. and much has been said that maybe they're not paying enough.

none of them is making a profit. if you take a look at spotify, it just reached 10 million paid subscribers, it has never posted a profit. pandora has 3.3 million subscribers, last quarter it posted a $28.9 million loss. and the generator research did an analysis and said this, no current music subscription service, including marquee brands like pandora, spotify and rhapsody, can ever be profitable, even if they execute perfectly because they're paying 60% to 70% of revenue for licensing which is unsustainable. so i look at these statistics, i'm wondering why mr. miller isn't getting paid and how we fix this? as i've listened to you, mr. griffin, it seems to me what you're proposing basically is a

transparent system that takes the middle man completely out of this scenario potentially. is that going to work in the interim? >> i don't think it takes the middle man out at all. i think there's still extraordinarily valuable for aggregation, for promotion, any of the number of roles that the societies play and that the companies play. they only grow. it is absolutely critical that we record, enumerate, maintain, updates of those who were involved with these works, those who own these works, those who we need to pay when these works are used and we do not do that now. it is extraordinarily difficult to talk about a market when you cannot look up and find, say, all of the songwriters of a track. let me tell you, there are sometimes more than 30 songwriters for a single song. and i suspect, although i'm not an attorney, if they all get divorced once, there's 60 rights holders to contact to clear that track. now that's an important role for a middleman to bring those people together but you have to

split that money correctly downstream and find those who you would contact to directly license if you wish to do so under a supposedly free market. >> well, it seems to me that as we take a look at, you know, nobody buys cds anymore, everything is going online. everything's downloaded. and it's important that we have that digital delivery of music compensated so artists like mr. miller can be paid and so there's a delicate balance here where you need to actually make these services that are willing to pay profitable because if they go away all that's left online is pirates. and that's not a desirable outcome. mr. knife, do you have any suggestions on how to deal with this? >> that would be a very, very long answer. i guess the short version is that we should move very, very carefully as one of the other

congress mn said earlier. businesses build their businesses based on assumptions of costs and how their business is going to run over the years lying out as they establish their business plans. i think as we look at all of these issues, the comprehensive licensing, compulsory licensing, blanket licensing, et cetera, we need to move carefully and we need to make sure that whatever system we come up with, adequately takes into account the fact that people are building their businesses based on expectations. >> well, it seems to me, as we move forward, and i'm sure we will, everybody's got to be at the table because although people are situated in different parts of the scene with different financial interests in the end, if we don't have a system that works, mr. miller is not going to get paid, mr. portnow is not going to get paid and we end up with a situation. we had a -- it was two years ago that we dealt with sopa that was not going to work but all of us agreed that, you know, we ought

to follow the money and make sure that we end up with a system that compensates rights holders. this is a key element of that. again, mr. -- my time has again, my time is expired, but i think this has been an excellent panel. >> i think one of the things that we should remember, you should take into the fact that businesses won't have as many problems with prospective change. and that's, if you look, i think, you should look at more of the perspective rather than going backwards. >> allow me to add this. as we move to international trade more and more for our music, the countries need to communicate with us in different languages and different character sets. any kind of unique number of respect for them makes it very difficult to get mr. miller his

money when we're seeing a chinese organization or russian organization or anyone with a different language. >> my time is expired, mr. chairman, thank you very much. >> you'll be pleased, too, mr. miller, most of you have a pretty good cheering section here today. this hasn't been near as hard as i thought it would be. >> we're not done yet, lee. >> if the distinguish jegentlem from north carolina would go? >> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, earlier in my career, i worked in another body and was a legislative counsel on tax issues. we always kept our eye on the larger picture and the desire for a major tax overhaul. we're often confronted by issues where a constituent or a constitue constituent's business has been unfairly impacted by unintended consequences of a law, rule or regulation. we would work by our rifle shot fix for that unintended

consequence and i think that the respect that confronts and idiosin kro sill in the law that's some of our greatest talents just because those before 1972 aren't getting compensated. the situation has also led to laws 234 the united states. this is costly. it's complicated for everyone involved in this eco-system, as it's been termed. and i think it's a good reason for congress to act and provides a legal clarity not only for the artist impacted, but by the growing digital music platforms. and i want to point out is that the additional music services are playing an important role promoting artists in all generations. i want to commend them. these are new technologies, new ways to enjoy music and new revenue streams. i wouldn't begrudge the founder

of pandora for making a lot of money because he's created a new revenue stream for artists to get revenue. so, you know, it's a discreet problem. and i think we have a rifle shot solution and i think it's appropriate and a good opportunity for congress to act. i don't think waiting for an overall copy right review is a reason to forgo fixing a problem that is an unintended consequence of law. now, mr. knife, i read your testimony. so i think i know what you were laboring to get out about two hours ago.

you believe that will create an anomaly with these pre-1972 artists. but i think the anomaly, rather than creating an anomaly, is, yet, fixing an anomaly that copyright law has left open this loophole which companies can exploit because it's pre-1972. they plain the reportings. this is pretty iconic music. you know, the artists that are still with us aren't getting any younger. and the services get to play this music for free. now, your members, they use the statutory license, presumably, because it provides a one-stop shop for all of the sound recording rights that they need to operate a service. and it's also become clear that those services believe that the

statutory license doesn't apply to the rights protected only by state law made before 1972. but, rather, you get the rights in some other way, these services have simply decided not to pay anyone for the rights to play the recordings. so i recognize, reading your testimony, that you may not believe there's performance rights implicated by the state law. and i think you're wrong, by the way. but i think it's clear that there are some reproduction rights at stake because you've got to make a copy to your server before you can play it anyway. that's one pint. it's also clear that in a private market, directly licensed services don't seem to draw a line between federally and state-protected recordings. in the private sector and the private license we've been talking about. in addition, it's incredibly complicated to find out if a

recording is protected by state law. it's been reengineered and protected by a federal copy right law. foreign recordings are protected by federal law. it gets complicated. so the agreement that you have, it seems that it would be simpler for you to pay for all of the music rather than try to draw this distinction for pre-1972 music just because there's a loophole there and you can. so laying all of that out there, i'm just confused as to why your members haven't embraced this kind of simple, elegant, rifle shot solution which i think would be beneficial to your members. so, mr. chairman, can he have just a minute to answer that? >> granted. >> yeah, thank you very much for laying the issue out so clearly. the truth is that amongst my membership, some of my members do pay for pre-'72 sound recordings. as you pointed out based on direct deals and other

arrangements. the point that i was trying to make about it establishing an anomaly was not that it doesn't attempt that the respect act digit attempt to address an existing anomaly. the problem we have is that it just seems to build another anomaly on that in that it doesn't afford full federalization of these pre-'72 sound recordings. it leaves certain people disenfranchised and continues, as i've complained about throughout today's hearing, the fragmentation of the marketplace. it doesn't allow libraries and a archiving constitutions to have their rights. and, probably, most importantly, it doesn't afford those older legacy artists the opportunity to get their copyrights back or negotiate for a better deal.

so that's our issue. an issue that not in and of itself in an attempt to rectify a situation, an issue that it seems to be, once again, a very, very narrow lly tailored remedy that ends up creating more anomalies within the system. >> the gentleman's time is expired. the gentle lady from texas is recognized fr five minutes. >> mr. chairman, and the ranking member, let me first of all take a little bit of my time to say that this is an enormously important process. i've gone through this for maybe almost a decade. and just the idea of an anonymous approach and fixing it or attempting to fix it is a huge part in history.

let me apologize on the record that we were in the meeting for the reaugthorization on the voting rights act. i think all of you understand how vital that is. so we had to divide our time. i don't know whether anyone has gone on record for the honorable approach, and i believe that is the right approach. what i'd like to do is to get some of us here to indicate what would be the most important item to be in aspect of an omnibus approach. i assume we'll be listening to broadcasters at some point and others involved in this process. many of you know that my work has included the valuing of the performance and the writer and the key element of putting together music, which i any many

of the newer generation doesn't know what it takes because they see it all within the twinkle of an eye. music being played, heard and written, what would be the most important lelement congress should look at if we were to look at an omnibus approach. >> thank you for the question. and i want to take a moment to thank you for your performance rights issue, which is critical to us as i indicated in my opening remarks. i think it's really about fair markt value. if we can get our heads and arms around a fair market approach to all contism wents here, that's going to rise all votes. we all have the producer, the engineer, those behind the scenes that are the background