Music creators work incredibly hard to make the sound recordings we all know and love. Music helps shape our world and our culture, but our outdated laws fail to ensure that music creators are compensated fairly. Different platforms are treated differently under the law. The least innovative technologies are being propped up by inexplicable government subsidies. Sound recordings from generations past have been arbitrarily deemed not eligible for copyright protections. And the largest, most popular music platforms in the world are capitalizing on antiquated laws to ensure they can generate revenue by selling ads while paying artists literally fractions of a penny for their work.
Fairness is a principle at the core of our American values. We have to restore fairness to music and ensure that those who create the sound recordings that change our lives are compensated fairly, especially since others are already profiting from their hard work.
Music services like Spotify, Pandora and Apple Music pay performers for playing their songs, yet there is exactly one music platform in the U.S. (actually, in the entire developed world) where the principle of fair pay for one’s work does not apply: broadcast radio.
LEARN MORESiriusXM benefits from an unfair, below-market royalty rate for the music that it plays. Meanwhile federal law props up AM/FM radio’s lack of innovation by exempting broadcasters from paying artists for their work.
LEARN MOREMost artists who created music before 1972 are not compensated when their work is played on digital radio, satellite radio and, of course, FM radio.
LEARN MOREGoogle’s YouTube is the most popular music service in world, far bigger than Spotify, Apple or Pandora. Yet YouTube exploits loopholes and an old law shielding them from fairly compensating music creators.
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Music has value and music creators should be fairly compensated for their work. Legislation that addresses these issues, combined with more responsible practices by music services, will restore the core American value of fairness to music.
It’s time to correct serious flaws in our federal copyright laws. Some of our most iconic song recordings are not protected and the music creators responsible for these classics have spent decades fighting for fairness.
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