An order issued by federal Judge Louis Stanton has rejected the Department of Justice's controversial interpretation of the BMI consent decree, giving BMI the freed to engage in fractional licensing of music.

A scanned copy of the ruling can be found here.

If you need to get up to speed, know that the DOJ decided to not alter the consent decree for ASCAP and BMI as it pertained to digital licensing, and the two PROs could not do fractionalized licensing, meaning that any song with multiple rights holders represented by different PROs could be OK’d by one rights owner without the consent of the other(s). Understandably, feathers were ruffled, so this ruling proves to be quite the accomplishment.

“As we have said from the very beginning, we believed our consent decree allowed for the decades-long practice of fractional licensing and today we are gratified that Judge Stanton confirmed that belief," said BMI President & CEO Mike O’Neill (pictured). "Our mission has always been to protect the interests of our songwriters, composers and publishers, and we feel we have done just that. Today’s decision is a victory for the entire music community.”