Protect Working Musicians Act of 2023

[Art Munson]

Thought this was interesting.

September 20, 2023

The Society of Composers & Lyricists (SCL), Songwriters Guild of America (SGA), and Music Creators North America (MCNA) applaud Congresswoman Deborah Ross (NC-02) for introducing legislation to provide independent songwriters, composers, lyricists, and other music creators the power to collectively negotiate with both streaming platforms and generative artificial intelligence (AI) developers for fair compensation.

Under the current law, independent musicians have little ability to bargain for market value rates for the use of their music by global streaming platforms and AI companies. Instead, we are forced to accept whatever terms are offered by these platforms, while also having almost no ability to engage with AI companies who routinely scrape and use our music without consent, credit or compensation. Congresswoman Ross’ legislation, entitled the Protect Working Musicians Act of 2023, would allow independent music artists to band together and collectively negotiate with large streaming platforms and AI developers, without fear of being sued under antitrust laws.

[Art Munson]

Bump

[Music1234]

Thanks Art,

I have sent this letter to my congress representatives. Everyone should click on the link and send this letter.

https://www.votervoice.net/ASCAPNYC/Campaigns/107626/Respond?TrackingID=AdvocacyEmail2

[Art Munson]

Yes, great idea!

[composer]

Thanks for sharing this, Art. It’s fascinating. It’s a very concise, articulate, compassionate summary of the challenges facing professional musicians today.

(And I’m a fan of any bill that includes the phrase “gigabit-speed game of whack-a-mole.”)

The legislation “would allow independent music artists to band together and collectively negotiate with large streaming platforms and AI developers”. What do you imagine that would look like? Who might take the lead, and how might that be organized?

[Music1234]

“The legislation “would allow independent music artists to band together and collectively negotiate with large streaming platforms and AI developers”. What do you imagine that would look like? Who might take the lead, and how might that be organized?”

It should be the PRO’s who take the lead. Composers and Publishers are members of PRO’s. PRO’s collect money from users of music (Lisencors) Lisensor defition: grant a license to (someone or something) to permit the use of something or to allow an activity to take place.

The PRO’s collect from all TV networks, radio stations, concert venues, bars, restaurants, theme parks, companies who play music in stores, on planes, etc. etc…also YOUTUBE, CHAT GPT/ OPEN AI, ADOBE, FACEBOOK, TIK TOK. The PRO’s have all composers, songwriters, and publishers herded up into one place to be a very powerful and loud voice in the effort. PRO’s can establish unions. PRO’s can lobby for legislation to make “Generative AI Music” illegal or deem it as copyright infringement. The AFM, SAG, and AFTRA can also help in the effort.

It’s not as hard as one may think. It’s pretty obvious what has been going on so far: Google/ YOUTUBE, CHAT GPT/ OPEN AI, META/ FACEBOOK, Microsoft, TIK TOK, Nvidia have been scraping the internet for photos, music, vocal performances, human voices, illustrations, videos, etc…to ingest the content into their AI learning models. Not a single original creator ever really granted permission to these companies.

We are witnessing the largest theft of intellectual property by the largest companies in the world happen before our eyes. These companies know what they are doing and they seemingly realize too, that it is wrong and that is why there was a “closed door” private meeting 2 weeks ago with the CEO’s of all of these companies and senators where they all agreed that these activities need to be regulated.

[echoflex]

Just sent a message to my rep. A little Hail Mary for the creatives of the world.

[Author]

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