Testimony at Capitol Hill Hearing Calls for Performance Rights for Musicians

August 1, 2024

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On June 26, country music legend and Local 257 (Nashville, TN) member Randy Travis and SoundExchange President and CEO Michael Huppe testified on Capitol Hill in support of the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA). The hearing, titled “Radio, Music, and Copyrights: 100 Years of Inequity for Recording Artists,” was held by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet.

Under AMFA, musicians would finally be paid a royalty when their music is played on AM/FM radio. While songwriters and composers have long received royalties when their music is played on American terrestrial radio, the same is not true of the performers—singers and instrumentalists—who recorded the hits.

Mary Travis, Randy’s wife, acted as the voice of her husband at the hearing. Randy can no longer sing or speak due to aphasia. As a result of this impairment, he has given up touring and now relies on royalties to support his long-term care. As an artist who has performed other artists’ compositions, he too would benefit from royalties under the bill. However, all performing artists—from accompanists to vocalists to symphonic musicians—would benefit when their recordings are played on terrestrial radio.

AMFA would establish fair market value for radio performance royalties, similar to how rates are set for streaming platforms. The bill would task the Copyright Royalty Board—the three-judge body that determines streaming, satellite radio, and mechanical royalty rates—with setting the royalty rates for the new license.

The radio industry, represented by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), has long lobbied against a radio performance right for musicians, claiming it would financially harm radio stations, force them to cut programming, and could lead to them only playing the most popular songs.

“To put it bluntly,” said Huppe, “… for over a century, AM/FM radio has been stealing the music. Last year alone, radio made $15 billion in revenue, and not a dime of that went to the artists that draw the crowd.”

Under AMFA, stations that earn less than $1.5 million in annual revenue (and whose parent company makes less than $10 million in annual revenue) would pay less than $2 per day ($500 annually). Small, noncommercial stations with annual revenue less than $100,000 would pay as little as $10 per year.

While small broadcasters would pay these modest fees under AMFA, the large national corporations that dominate the broadcasting industry would pay more. Huppe argued they could easily afford it. “This is a $15 billion business in the US,” he said. “Eighty-eight percent of all Americans listen to radio. The biggest broadcast groups are becoming bigger and more powerful.”

AMFA would also compel foreign radio stations to pay US-based artists for the performance of their songs. Currently, the United States, North Korea, and Iran are the only industrialized nations that do not pay a broadcast performance royalty for sound recordings. Because of this, foreign radio stations commonly avoid paying performance royalties to American artists.

“Congress must set a standard that creators need to be compensated wherever and whenever their music is played–especially when their creations form the backbone of the business model, like they do for AM/FM radio,” stated Huppe. “American musicians lose almost $300 million of taxable US income each year because we lack these protections in the US—this is on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars they are already missing out on domestically.”

AFM International Vice President and Local 257 President Dave Pomeroy attended the hearing on behalf of the AFM. He performed his original song “Respect the Band,” written in support of the AMFA, at the post-hearing reception held in the House of Representatives, with the Travises, committee chair and AMFA co-sponsor Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) and others in attendance.

The Travises and Huppe also called on Congress to modernize the nation’s copyright law to protect creators from advancing artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Randy was recently able to release the single “Where That Came From” through the use of AI in the most “authentic and artistic way,” said Mary, with full artist consent and involvement in the studio.

“This is good AI, but there is bad, no, there’s terrible AI out there, and it’s increasing exponentially daily,” said Mary Travis. She compared the unauthorized use of an artist’s voice to identity theft. “There needs to be laws that are in place to keep that from happening, which means consent and compensation and attribution and provenance.”

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