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Well before the MMA, music law was chaotic and
arbitrary.

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Arbitrary in the sense, it was unfair.

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We took a comprehensive review of all of our
copyright laws.

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We found that the most complicated area
and the most contentious but also, by far

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the most in need of reform was in the area
of music copyright law.

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What happened for me was, I began to see that
there was an extreme,

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I guess divergence on what used to be and

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how the creative community got paid and how
they were currently getting paid in the new

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economy.

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Now, there are several ways to look at that.

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You can either blame the new economy or blame
the new technology and say it's all bad or

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you can say, how can we work together.

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The Music Modernization Act will accomplish
bringing the law into the real world of how

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music gets to people’s ears today.

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The Music Modernization Act treats various
sectors of the music industry, or creative

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artists and songwriters and others in a much
more fair way in terms of sharing the rewards

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for the creativity that takes place in that
industry.

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This is an enormous step towards what the
copyright system is supposed to be all about.

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The copyright system is supposed to be about
creating reasonable incentives to create new

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works and innovation in the arts, music and
the like.

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I hope it will set a durable framework for
fair compensation for songwriters, for performers,

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while providing reasonable access to recordings,
both for the listening public and for libraries

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and other public-serving institutions.

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I think the MMA is an example as most pieces
of legislation are, of legislation which all

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the, most, in this case, all the people that
something, all the people involved got something

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they wanted and they didn’t get every, not
everybody got everything they wanted.

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But everybody came out better than without
it.

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Well to bring everybody in the industry together
was a major feat, was something that nobody expected

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us to be able to do.

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You know, it wasn’t easy to bring this all
together,

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but we were able to do it and it’s a tremendous
bill.

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It’s a tremendous approach towards the music
industry and songwriters are being treated

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fairly
for the first time.

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The Copyright Office has always been a very
close partner with this office

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and a close partner with, I think, the creative
community.

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Understanding that if we ever lose the incentive
to create,

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the rest will go away, and I think that's
a very good way to look at it.

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And, I'm looking forward to their work in
the future as well.

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Without the Copyright Office’s cooperation
we couldn’t pass the bill,

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and they recognized the very problems that
I was trying to solve.

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I don’t want any historian or anybody to
go through the archives,

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you know, years from now and look back and
say "Wow, that vote was unanimous, that must’ve

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been easy".

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It’s probably the most difficult unanimous
vote we ever had.

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The bill was able to be passed because there's
a realization

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that for a generation

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we've been talking about problems

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and you get a once in a

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generation opportunity to make needed changes
in law, you better take advantage of it.