Judgment For BMI
A federal judge ruled in favor of BMI Sept. 16 in its battle with the U.S. Justice Department, allowing the music licensing organization the right to use fractional licensing, i.e, licensing portions of songs to various songwriters or publishers.
Broadcast Music Inc. argued that the practice is common in the industry and wanted to formalize it so that decrees be modified to explicitly allow it, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Justice Department argued that such licensing would make it difficult for music users – including venues that play music – to track ownership of songs. The DOJ added that consent decrees required “full work” licenses and that fractional licensing “would undermine the traditional role of the Ascap and BMI licenses in providing protection from unintended copyright infringement liability.”
Music licensing organization Ascap is also in federal court with the DOJ over the same concern but is holding its case with a different federal judge and is not affected by Friday’s decision.
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