Music Streamers’ New Law • EU-Japan on Verge of Data Pact

Music streaming companies like Spotify are breathing a sigh of relief.

President Donald Trump signed the Music Modernization Act after months of debate in Congress, which could go a long way toward reducing streamers’ legal liability stemming from royalties to artists.

The new law creates a collective to offer blanket rights to digital downloads and ends the need to secure rights from individual copyright holders, Kyle Jahner reports. It also creates new federal protection for sound recordings made before 1972 and used by digital radio. Those recordings were previously governed by a patchwork of state laws.

Musicians have a ...