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 Music helps shape our world and our culture, but our outdated laws fail to ensure that music creators are compensated fairly.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. 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 MOREGoogle’s YouTube is the most popular music service in the world, far bigger than Spotify, Apple or Pandora. Yet YouTube exploits loopholes and an old law shielding them from fairly compensating music creators.
LEARN MOREContinued consolidation poses a real threat to competition, localism and diversity in the radio industry. Big broadcasters are lobbying the to loosen the Local Radio Station Ownership Caps and if they do, local stations will be swallowed up or crowded out by large broadcasters that already have too much control over what listeners hear on the radio in local communities across the country.
LEARN MOREMusic creators deserve equal treatment when it comes to royalties, regardless of their nationality. In the US, all music creators are entitled to receive the same types of royalties, no matter where they live. That should be true in every country around the world.
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The 117th Congress must enact bipartisan legislation to help restore property rights for music creators.
We can help extend the same property rights that we all enjoy and that have been central to our democracy since the birth of our nation, to the artists who create the music we all love to listen to.
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