House IP Subcommittee slated to hold a hearing on the American Music Fairness Act TODAY, Wednesday, June 26th at 2pm ET, watch at this link.

The hearing is aptly titled “Radio, Music, and Copyrights: 100 Years of Inequity for Recording Artists.”  Randy Travis and Mike Huppe will testify for our side alongside the National Association of Broadcasters and an executive from Radio One (a company that bills itself as the largest urban radio network).

The American Music Fairness Act of 2023 (HR 791) was introduced by Representatives Darrell Issa and Jerry Nadler, and in the U.S. Senate by Senators Alex Padilla and Marsha Blackburn (S 253).  The bill has bipartisan support for which I am grateful. 

AMFA rights a long-standing wrong and injustice—artists and musicians are not paid a royalty when their recordings are performed on broadcast radio.  This shortcoming of American law is entirely arbitrary and out of step with practically every other country in the world that respects creator rights and private property.  

In fact, current U.S. law that AMFA would correct puts the United States into the same category as North Korea and Iran.  Every other Western democracy pays artists and musicians for performances on broadcast radio and have done so for decades.

Most people have no idea this inequity exists. When I explain this injustice to the Texan on the street, they are shocked.  But the reality is that great Texas artists from The Archangels to Marcia Ball to Beyoncé to Gary Clark, Jr. to Pat Green to Travis Scott to Jackie Venson to ZZ Top do not get paid when their recordings are broadcast.  Not one of them.

And the same is true of your home town artists, no matter where you live in America.

And it gets worse.  Because America is out of step with the rest of the world, the royalties earned by Texas artists overseas are denied to them and paid to others.  These payments run to the hundreds of millions every year.  AMFA fixes that injustice both by establishing the performance right for broadcast radio and by utilizing SoundExchange to distribute the new royalty.  (This is efficient because SoundExchange already has the necessary artist and musician payment information due to existing webcasting royalties.)

Let no one say that AMFA harms local radio—the truth is that AMFA is supported by a significant number of community radio operators including the Alliance for Community Media, Common Frequency, Media Alliance, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB), Prometheus Radio Project, and REC Networks.

HR 791 has many carve-outs and protections for legitimate local, non-commercial and small broadcasters.  I was recently invited to speak about AMFA on an educational outreach panel in San Antonio hosted by Texas Public Radio and was pleased to see considerable support for the bill.

AMFA is the product of years of negotiation and accommodation to protect community radio, noncommercial stations and small broadcasters in general. 

Texas artists are still fighting their way back from the devastating pandemic that has harmed the live music business in Texas.  Unlocking the radio airplay royalty from both the U.S. and overseas would be a huge economic boost to the recovery of Texas artists and the economic development of Texas without cost to the taxpayer.  There is no better time to fix this harmful shortcoming of US Copyright Law.