Another piece of legislation in Washington, D.C., is making its way through Congress that would pay artists and record labels for plays at terrestrial radio.
If that sentence sounds familiar, that’s because the issue has long been present on Capitol Hill without managing to win a presidential signature. In 1988, Frank Sinatra sent a letter to Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Ella Fitzgerald, Bruce Springsteen and about 20 other music luminaries about a decades-old inconsistency in music copyright law. There’s no reason why the writer and publisher should be compensated for radio plays but not the performer, he argued.
Sinatra foresaw an expeditious end to his activism. “We are optimistic that with a united effort, we will be able to achieve successful results within a reasonable period of time,” he wrote. But 36 years and numerous legislative attempts later, other artists are still working on the task.
The latest artist to pick up the baton is country icon Randy Travis, who appeared before a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Wednesday (June 26) in support of the latest legislation to address the issue, the American Music Fairness Act. Artists helped build radio in the U.S.
and should be properly compensated, said Randy’s wife, Mary Travis (Randy has had difficulty speaking since suffering a stroke in 2013). Passing AMFA, she told lawmakers, “would make many old wrongs finally right.” The safest statement of the afternoon, though, went to Subcommittee chairma.
