Pay Her Respect - Pass American Music Fairness Act
The American Music Fairness Act (AMFA) would ensure artists and music creators are fairly paid a performance royalty for the use of their songs on AM/FM radio. This practical, bipartisan legislation would bring corporate radio broadcasters in line with all other music streaming platforms, which already pay a performance royalty artists for their work. The United States is currently the only democratic country in the world in which artists are not compensated this way for the use of their music on broadcast radio.
Each year, radio corporations rake in billions in advertising dollars while refusing to pay a single cent to the artists and music creators who makes their entire business model possible. This inequity not only harms artists at home, but also abroad as most foreign countries withhold payments to American music creators when their work is played in their countries, simply because the U.S. doesn’t have a performance royalty. This amounts to nearly $500 million every year in lost income for American artists
To pass AMFA would bring justice to millions of musicians including the late great Aretha Franklin. Since she did not write the song or own the publishing, Aretha Franklin never received radio royalties for her version of “Respect”, a song played millions of times on broadcast radio since its release
A recent national poll commissioned by the musicFIRST Coalition – the voice for fairness and equity for music creators – found that 73% of Americans agree that it is unfair that artists don’t get paid when their songs are played on the radio. NITO believes it is now time for our nation to align with the rest of the developed world and ensure that hard-working artists and creators are paid fairly going forward.
