We want Trichordist readers to now how much we appreciate your commitment to artist rights and especially your long-term support for the #IRespectMusic campaign. You were there early and your support has never wavered. But it’s time to step up once again!
It’s time to tell Congress we are still here and we still want them to make this happen. It’s fair and it’s the right thing to do. As Blake Morgan asked in a viral blog post in The Hill:
We musicians are used to fighting. For our livelihoods, our families, our dreams. In recent years we’ve fought battles we’ve neither sought nor provoked, against powerful corporate forces devaluing music’s worth. Streaming companies, music pirates, and AM/FM radio broadcasters who, in the United States, pay nothing––zero––to artists for radio airplay.
It’s shocking, but true: The United States is the only democratic country in the world where artists don’t get paid for radio airplay. Only Iran, North Korea, and China stand with the United States in this regard.
Broadcasters make billions of dollars each year off our music, and artists don’t earn a penny. This impacts not only the artist, but session musicians, recording engineers, songwriters. Virtually everyone in music’s economy.
Isn’t being paid fairly for one’s work a bedrock American value?
The super-consolidated U.S. broadcast radio monopolies represented by the National Association of Broadcasters shillery has fought fair treatment for all recording artists since the dawn of radio. Thanks to the voices of fans and artists from around the United States, fair pay for radio play has become a local issue, and Congress is responding.
Tune in on February 2nd at 10 am ET for the House Judiciary Hearing, “Respecting Artists with the American Music Fairness Act” thanks to Rep. Ted Deutch and Rep. Darrell Issa, the bi-partisan co-sponsors of the historic legislation.
In the mean time, please sign the petition at #IRespectMusic and let your Member of Congress know you support the bill and want to bend the arc of the moral universe to fight artist exploitation. Please tell your friends, share on your socials and with your fans!
You can read the bill here, and if you want to drill down, you can watch this in-depth video on the issues sponsored by Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts, I Respect Music Austin, Austin Music Foundation, SoundExchange, Austin Texas Musicians and Artist Rights Watch.
The Trichordist 
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