Copyright Office October 2019 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

As directed by the Music Modernization Act, the U.S. Copyright Office is conducting a study to evaluate best practices that the Mechanical Licensing Collective should implement in the following areas: (1) To identify and locate musical work copyright owners and unclaimed accrued royalties held by the collective; (2) to encourage musical work copyright owners to claim the royalties of those owners; and (3) to reduce the incidence of unclaimed royalties. To initiate this effort, the Office is holding a one-day symposium to provide an educational foundation and facilitate public discussion on issues relevant to the study. Following this symposium, the Office will separately issue Notices of Inquiry soliciting written comments and announcing roundtables, both of which will provide opportunities for public input on the Unclaimed Royalties Study.