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A couple of hours before the Super Bowl LVIII Finals, Donald Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday, February 11, and claimed that he was the one “who signed and was responsible for the Music Modernization Act.”
In the same post, he also added how he did it for musical artists such as Taylor Swift, while his opponent President Joe Biden “didn’t do anything for her” nor he ever will.
The post gained significant attention online as soon as it was published. In the meantime, according to Wiki, Donald Trump signed the Music Modernization Act in 2018 while he was president. Its goal is to "modernize copyright-related issues for music and audio recordings due to new forms of technology such as digital streaming."
All you need to know about the Music Modernization Act signed by Donald Trump
A U.S. Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Va) introduced a bill in the House in December 2017, originally called the Musical Works Modernization Act (MWMA). In January 2018, it was introduced to the Senate by Orrin Hatch.
The bill was aimed at improving music licensing and royalty payments concerning streaming media services. It was approved by the House Judiciary Committee and passed in April 2018; the Senate passed it unanimously in September 2018.
Finally, in October, then President Donald Trump signed it into law. Since then, it has been called the Music Modernization Act (MMA) and it reformed the copyright law, updated royal and licensing rules, and paved a better way for musicians to control the ownership and rights of their songs in the streaming age.
According to a 2020 description of MMA on the Library of Congress's official website, it “changes the way songwriters and music publishers are paid statutory mechanical royalties [permission to reproduce and distribute recordings] when their work is streamed on interactive streaming services such as Apple Music or Spotify, or sold on downloading services like Amazon Music.”
It further added that “beginning in 2021, a nonprofit entity designated by the Copyright Office called the Mechanical Licensing Collective, or MLC will collect and distribute these royalty payments to copyright owners of musical works matched to sound recordings in its database."
The summary continued, "And down the line, but no earlier than 2023, any unclaimed royalties can start being paid to copyright owners and songwriters of matched works according to each work’s market share. But to get paid, you will need to register your songs with the MLC.”
Exploring what Donald Trump said about MMA and Taylor Swift
Before the San Francisco 49ers faced the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social and took credit for the Music Modernization Act. He added how he was the one who did it for “Taylor Swift and all other musical artists,” and Biden never did any such thing.
“There’s no way she [Swift] could endorse Crooked Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt President in the History of our Country, and be disloyal to the man [referring to himself] who made her so much money,” Trump wrote.
The GOP frontrunner for the 2024 election added how he liked Taylor’s boyfriend Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs tight, even though he was a “liberal” who “probably can’t stand me!”
Donald Trump’s post comes amid speculation about who Taylor Swift will endorse in the 2024 election. In 2020, she endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. However, so far, the Lover songstress has not shown favor for any political party or their candidates. Previously, she has criticized Trump on more than one occasion.
Meanwhile, conservatives predicted that the Super Bowl final was rigged in favor of the Kansas City Chiefs, and helped Kelce win it for Swift, in the wake of the latter’s record-breaking Eras Tour. Neither Kelce nor Swift or their respective teams have commented on the matter yet.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s Truth Social post, one of the attorneys behind the shaping of MMA, Dina LaPolt, told Variety that Trump “did nothing on our legislation except sign it,” and his claim is “funny.”
She also added how the law was in the making for years, even before Trump assumed office, who had no idea what that MMA does, and “someone should ask him what the bill actually accomplished.”
