American Music Fairness Act Advances Out of House Committee

On December 7, the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend the American Music Fairness Act – H.R. 4130 – in the form of a substitute bill. The legislation now goes to the full House of Representatives for consideration. The House – and then the Senate – should pass the bill into law and secure full public performance rights in copyright owners' music sound recordings. 

Under existing copyright law, terrestrial commercial AM/FM radio stations can profit off of copyrighted music sound recordings by broadcasting them to attract audiences and then draw revenue from running ads – all without paying royalties to the recordings' owners. The American Music Fairness Act would finally change this. The bill would require AM/FM stations to pay royalties to owners of sound recordings for the use of their intellectual property just like satellite radio and Internet radio stations pay public performance royalties to sound recording owners.

An important aspect of the American Music Fairness Act is that the bill includes a low, flat royalty rate for smaller commercial stations and for non-profit stations. In addition to ensuring that sound recording owners finally receive compensation for third-parties' commercial use of their copyrighted works in America, the bill would enable sound recording owners to begin receiving from foreign radio stations public performance royalties that have long been withheld because of the shortcomings of U.S. copyright law.

Also, nobody in Congress should take seriously the claim that royalty payments to copyright owners for public use – including commercial use – of their works is a tax. Royalties are not taxes. There are obvious differences between paying taxes or fees to the government and paying for the right to make copies, publicly display, or publicly perform another's copyrighted property. (I address this matter more in my blog post of September 6, 2022.) The American Music Fairness Act is a pro-property rights bill. 

For further background on the American Music Fairness Act, see my February 2022 Perspectives from FSF Scholars, "American Music Fairness Act Would Secure Copyrights in Sound Recordings," as well as my April 2021 Perspectives, "Congress Should Secure Full Copyright Protections for Music Sound Recordings."