GRAMMYs on the Hill: We’re not gonna take it anymore

The campaign for #SupportMusic gathers momentum as more music professionals come to Washington to directly engage in talks for music law reform. The drumbeat behind this message is growing more insistent. Depressed royalty rates for music streaming and other digital platforms, the lack of a performance royalty at commercial radio, increased rates of online music piracy and other challenges are hurting America’s creative class. Evidence of the compelling need for music law reforms can be seen in the growing participation from top-tier artists to those starting out in grassroots lobbying on these issues in Washington. They want change now.
 
On April 14, some 250 Recording Academy members from across the country will gather in the Nation’s Capital for GRAMMYs on the Hill Advocacy Day, which is the largest grassroots lobbying day for the music industry. Our plan is to drive home a simple message: Regardless of changes in delivery platforms, music is a valuable commodity whose creators deserve fair compensation.
 
{mosads}Answering The Recording Academy’s call to participate in GRAMMYs on the Hill are some recognizable music pros. GRAMMY-winning Motown great Smokey Robinson and Dee Snider, the outspoken lead singer of shock rock band Twisted Sister, whose rock anthem “We’re Not Gonna Take It!” will be heard in a live performance early Thursday to rally the advocates, will both be there. Also bringing their clout to The Hill will be GRAMMY-winning pop and R&B producers Harvey Mason Jr., Evan Bogart and Rodney Jenkins; Collective Soul lead singer and songwriter Ed Roland; eminent rock guitarist Warren Haynes of the Allman Brothers; GRAMMY-winning jazz veteran Ramsey Lewis; members of GRAMMY-winning funk band Kool & the Gang; Americana pioneer Jim Lauderdale; rocker Eddie Money; and the songwriters behind chart-topping hits for the likes of Meghan Trainor, Beyonce, and Michael Jackson — to name just a few who will participate in more than 70 private meetings with legislators.
 
This year’s GRAMMYs on the Hill Advocacy Day builds on the success of The Recording Academy’s successful GRAMMYs in My District event of six months ago. This uniquely impactful single-day grassroots event on Oct. 13 saw 1,650 Academy members visit the local district offices of their elected leaders in support of music reforms in dozens of states.
 
In just its second year, GRAMMYs in My District saw its registration jump by nearly 1,000 percent over the previous year as GRAMMYs on the Hill attracts more prominent music makers than ever before.
 
What’s going on here?
 
Music creators are calling on their representatives to level the playing field like never before. Through calls, visits, and editorials, they are demanding that their representatives help bring music licensing into the 21st century. Their voices are not going away. They’re only getting louder.
 
The goal of GRAMMYs on the Hill is to remind those in government as well as the public at large that there are people behind the music they love – and most of them are not globetrotting superstars. Many are people who spend their time in studios and coffee shops, at dining tables and in garages, crafting music by writing, playing, singing, and producing for a paycheck to pay their bills and raise their families.

Specifically, Recording Academy advocates will ask members of Congress for support of the Fair Play Fair Pay Act of 2015. This bill addresses a number of discrete issues within one piece of legislation: the establishment of a performance royalty at commercial radio; the establishment of a free-market royalty rate-setting process; protections for previously established songwriter rates; and digital performance royalties for recordings made before 1972. GRAMMY Advocates will also seek support for fair pay for producers and songwriters through provisions in the Allocation for Music Producers Act and Songwriters Equity Act that should be part of any music licensing reform.
 
If adopted, these bills would go far toward leveling the playing field for music creators who currently find themselves squeezed to the margins of an industry that uses their creative endeavors as the basis of their businesses while failing to justly compensate them.
 
Creators who make a living by their work are more proactive than ever. The argument is not whether music itself will survive – it will, as long as there are people with the creative spirit to pursue it. The larger question is whether the creation of music will survive as a viable profession for this generation and those to come. With more name artists joining the fight on Capitol Hill, The Recording Academy looks to drive the conversation around music rights to action today.

Friedman is Chief Industry Government and Member Relations Officer, The Recording Academy