A new online system could save streaming services a few headaches — and perhaps a few lawsuits — by giving music publishers direct involvement in the often messy process of mechanical licensing.

Back in December, Spotify was hit with a $150 million class-action lawsuit from a group of artists — led by musician David Lowery — who said that the streaming giant failed to obtain licenses for its music in a “continuous and ongoing campaign of deliberate copyright infringement.” 

At the time, Spotify said it wasn’t at all deliberate, but rather a result of poor data, saying in a statement that “the data necessary to confirm the appropriate rightsholders is often missing, wrong, or incomplete.” 

The Harry Fox Agency oversaw Spotify’s licensing, and when the company was hit with yet another class-action lawsuit in January — this time for $200 million — lawyers for publisher Melissa Ferrick claimed that HFA was “was ill-equipped to obtain licenses for all of the songs embodied in the phonorecords distributed by Spotify,” according to Billboard. 

Now, Music Reports  — a competitor of HFA, which also works with Tidal — has a new online claiming service that the company says will bring “a revolutionary level of transparency to a decades-old problem.” 

Unveiled at SXSW and launching Wednesday, the system will allow publishers unprecedented power to ensure that their publishing data is up to date, register new works and claim and license any recordings that may embody their songs. Every claim will be validated by the Music Reports research team of 40 musicologists.

Video: Armand Valdes, Loris Ravera

Speaking to Mashable, Music Reports Vice President Bill Colitre explained that one of the reasons the system is so complicated is that there are two different copyrights for each song you hear — for the recording (Nat King Cole’s “Route 66”)  and for the song itself (“Route 66,” composed by Bobby Troup). On top of that, there will often be several owners per song depending on the number of writers, samples and other factors.

Before now, Colitre says, there was no central database for music publishing — Music Reports’ registry was opened to the public last month — primarily because streaming services and labels closed this off out of fear of infringement claims if someone found something that wasn’t licensed.

Shortly before it was hit with the $150 million lawsuit in December, Spotify announced plans to invest in a “comprehensive publishing administration system,” but chances are, that wouldn’t be open to the public. Since Music Reports doesn’t do anything with the recordings and there’s no infringement liability, they’re opening the doors to everyone. 

“For the first time it gives the little publishers an even playing field. No one is charging them any money, there’s no obligations, but if they want to they can go and make their publishing claims known,” Colitre said. “For the big guys, this gives them a way to relieve their anxiety.” 

A representative for the Harris Fox Agency did not respond to Mashable‘s request for comment. 

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