The U.S. government issued consent decrees in 1941 that forever changed the music industry by regulating the rights of songwriters. Recently, the U.S. Justice Department has been reviewing the decrees after years of criticism from songwriters, music publishers and others in the industry, who decry the laws as antiquated and unfair. While technology has changed, the regulations have not. The result has been economically devastating to songwriters who cannot negotiate a fair-market price for their work. The decrees affect the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), two performance-rights organizations that license and distribute royalties. The government is considering whether artists would be able to remove part of their song creation lists in order to do their own licensing deals with other services.…