Partners Ilene Farkas, James Sammataro, Frank Scibilia, Benjamin Semel, Brad D. Rose, and Donald Zakarin were all recognized in Billboard's annual list of "2023 Top Music Lawyers." The winners are chosen by editors based on, but not limited to, peer nominations from colleagues, superiors at selected major music companies, live music promoters, digital and streaming companies, and law firms. This year's list features "[t]he best attorneys in the business [who] are defending the rights of their clients, negotiating smart deals — and warily watching the rise of artificial intelligence."
Billboard highlighted Pryor Cashman's success on behalf of songwriters and music publishers, representing the National Music Publishers' Association and the Nashville Songwriters Association International, obtaining significant increases in the mechanical royalty rates paid by the streaming services in both the remand of the Copyright Royalty Board Phonorecords III proceeding for period 2018 through 2022 and in the Phonorecords IV proceeding for the period 2023 through 2027. Billboard underscored that "Pryor Cashman lawyers fought to obtain and uphold a rate increase for the mechanical streaming rates that songwriters and publishers received." Farkas noted to Billboard that these matters "were two of the most economically consequential proceedings in the music industry."
In Phonorecords IV, the Pryor Cashman team negotiated a landmark settlement, "the first such settlement since 2012," to increase statutory rates for artists.
Billboard also noted Pryor Cashman's work on behalf of award-winning musicians Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber, and Megan Thee Stallion, among others, as well as "all of the major labels and publishing companies," including Universal, Sony, Warner, peermusic, ABKCO, and others.
The full list of winners and the Billboard feature can be found below.
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