{"id":26120,"date":"2022-08-31T18:18:26","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T22:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=26120"},"modified":"2022-08-31T18:33:53","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T22:33:53","slug":"senate-should-take-up-companion-legislation-to-the-houses-american-music-fairness-act-h-r-4130","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/26120\/senate-should-take-up-companion-legislation-to-the-houses-american-music-fairness-act-h-r-4130\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Should Take Up Companion Legislation to the House’s American Music Fairness Act (H.R. 4130)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Congress doesn’t maintain a spotless record of affixing accurate titles<\/a> to proposed legislation, but in the case of the American Music Fairness Act (H.R. 4130)<\/a>, the House of Representatives nails it.<\/p>\n

Now it’s time for the Senate to take up companion legislation and bring greater fairness to performance rights in the music industry.<\/p>\n

By way of background, federal law currently secures royalty payments for songwriters and others when their songs are played on AM-FM terrestrial radio, but not for the performing artists themselves.\u00a0 Deepening that odd paradox, performance artists receive compensation when their songs play on digital broadcast platforms like the internet, satellite and cable.\u00a0 Terrestrial radio broadcasters, however, somehow remain exempt under existing law from having to pay that same compensation.\u00a0 There\u2019s no logical or legal justification for that paradox, which amounts to crony capitalism in the form of a special government carve-out.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the American Music Fairness Act currently before the House would finally secure performance rights for artists whose recordings are played on terrestrial radio (with exceptions maintained for smaller mom-and-pop stations).\u00a0 In 2021, we at CFIF joined numerous fellow conservative and libertarian organizations in a coalition letter<\/a> to the House amplifying the need to pass this legislation to protect artists\u2019 natural intellectual property (IP) rights:<\/p>\n

The Constitution protects intellectual property rights and specifically delegates to Congress authority to protect creative works.\u00a0 Artists who produce music therefore have the right to protect their intellectual property, including both the writer and performer of a given recording.\u00a0 When a given work is transmitted, common sense and basic fairness dictate that the medium of transmission should not affect the existence of these rights.\u00a0 Yet, under the current regime, a performer does not hold effective or enforceable rights to his or her product when it is distributed through terrestrial radio.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Opponents of the American Music Fairness Act illogically suggest that it would somehow introduce needless market regulation, but the obvious reality is that the market is already regulated in the discriminatory manner described above.\u00a0 The American Music Fairness Act would merely level the playing field and respect the value of the artists\u2019 works.<\/p>\n

Some opponents of H.R. 4130 also falsely attempt<\/a> to portray it as creating a \u201ctax.\u201d\u00a0 As leading anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform answers<\/a>, however, taxes are compulsory<\/em> payments to government, whereas royalties are voluntary<\/em> payments to broadcast others\u2019 creations:<\/p>\n

[W]hat is proposed is not, in fact, a tax but a royalty.\u00a0 The definition of a tax is the transfer of wealth from a household or business to the government.\u00a0 Taxes aren\u2019t voluntary; paying a royalty is.\u00a0 It is completely within the rights of broadcasters to decide not to pay for the use of a performer\u2019s song by simply not using the song.\u00a0 This may not be an ideal option, but these songs actually are the property of someone else\u2026\u00a0 Just as dishonest as calling a tax a fee or fine, so too is it wrong to apply the word \u2018tax\u2019 to a royalty payment.\u00a0 Creating the negative perception that this legislation creates a new tax may be convenient in the short term and assist opponents in gaining political support;\u00a0 in the long run it is incredibly unhelpful to those who work to reduce the burden of government in our everyday lives.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By any standard of fairness and logic, performing artists possess a natural right to enjoy the fruits of their labor and creativity, just like any of us do for our work.\u00a0 After all, artists already receive performance payments from non-terrestrial radio stations, reflecting the value of their work.\u00a0 The American Music Fairness Act simply corrects an unfair and illogical federal carve-out.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, the House should promptly pass this long-overdue legislation, and the Senate should similarly take up companionate legislation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congress doesn’t maintain a spotless record of affixing accurate titles to proposed legislation, but in the case of the American Music Fairness Act (H.R. 4130), the House of Representatives nails it. Now it’s time for the Senate to take up companion legislation and bring greater fairness to performance rights in the music industry. By way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5168,3983,2871,2872,4672,5183,5184],"class_list":["post-26120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-american-music-fairness-act","tag-copyright","tag-intellectual-property","tag-ip","tag-music","tag-performance","tag-radio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26120"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26125,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26120\/revisions\/26125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}