We had a great panel in Austin to discuss the history of the U.S. broadcast terrestrial loophole and strategies to stop the century-long Big Radio free ride on the backs of the world’s recording artists. Strategy number one is to support the bi-partisan American Music Fairness Act (or “AMFA”) introduced in Congress as HR4130 and sponsored by Rep. Ted Deutch and Rep. Darrell Issa.

The panel of Texas artist Terrany Johnson pka Tee Double, Texas music lawyer Gwendolyn Seale, Sean Glover of SoundExchange and me discussed the importance of the bill to Texas artists. As Tee Double said, the issue and the AMFA bill are “genreless” because the issue is critical to all Texas artists regardless of genre or locale, and in fact to all American artists.

The panel’s main purpose was to educate viewers about the radio loophole–American is one of a handful of countries including China, Iran and North Korea that does not pay artists when their recordings are played on the radio. We emphasized that artists have the power to close that loophole through asking their Member of Congress to support the AMFA legislation through candidate forums and petitions to Congress like the Copyright Alliance petition or the petition at IRespectMusic.org.

One key topic was that artists should not be gaslighted by Big Radio’s argument that they should be able to force artists to work for free because “exposure”. This is one of the great dodges.

Hosting the panel alone helps to raise awareness of the opportunity to bend the arc of the moral universe and we want to thank all the great organizations that reached out to inform their members and supporters by hosting the educational panel. Hosting the event were the Austin area musician support organizations @ATXMusicians, @AustinMusic Foundation, @IRMAustin (I Respect Music Austin) and @TALATexas with help from @SoundExchange, the Copyright Alliance (@Unite4Copyright) and the Texas Music Office (@TXMusicOffice).

If you missed it you can watch it below and get the background materials here. Be sure to say hello to the panelists @sealeinthedeal, @terranyjohnson, Sean Glover and @musictechpolicy.

Takeaways are: Make sure you support artist pay for radio play and AMFA by filling out the Copyright Alliance petition or the petition at www.irespectmusic.org! Also consider calling or emailing your Congressperson and asking them to support AMFA. You can get that information by checking WhoAreMyRepresentatives.

In any event, artists, producers or labels should register for SoundExchange at www.soundexchange.com. Find out if SoundExchange is holding money for you already and whether your recordings are correctly registered with SoundExchange. Do this even if you are registered as a songwriter with a PRO like ASCAP or BMI–the PROs work for songwriters, SoundExchange works for artists, producers and record companies.

And while you’re at it, register to vote and get your band registered, too! We plan to have candidate forums in 2022 and you want to be ready to vote for artist rights! If you want to work on these efforts, please leave your contact with me.

Watch this space for updates on the American Music Fairness Act and artist pay for radio play or sign up for the MusicFirst Coaltion newsletter to stay in the loop. And finally if you have any questions, write to me or leave a comment.

Thanks!