{"id":10746,"date":"2026-05-21T13:07:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T13:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/music-law-would-let-indie-artists-team-up-against-ai-streaming\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T13:07:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T13:07:03","slug":"music-law-would-let-indie-artists-team-up-against-ai-streaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/music-law-would-let-indie-artists-team-up-against-ai-streaming\/","title":{"rendered":"Music Law Would Let Indie Artists Team Up Against AI & Streaming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tA new proposed federal law would allow independent musicians to team up to collectively negotiate licenses with AI companies and streaming platforms to help them \u201cdemand fair compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Protect Working Musicians Act, re-introduced Thursday morning (May 21) by Rep. Deborah Ross<\/strong> (D-N.C.), will help \u201clevel the playing field\u201d for indie artists, the Congresswoman tells Billboard<\/em>, since they lack the same kind of negotiating leverage as major stars and labels.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cWorking musicians and small independent labels face urgent challenges to their livelihoods posed by the market power of streaming platforms,\u201d Ross says. \u201cNow, as the use of AI in music production explodes, it\u2019s more urgent than ever to ensure artists\u2019 creations aren\u2019t being used without fair licenses and pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn technical terms, the new bill would give indie artists a so-called antitrust exemption, allowing them to work together in ways that would normally be banned under federal antitrust laws. Without that kind of collective power, such acts are often forced to accept \u201cone-size-fits-all lowball offers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAntitrust law currently prohibits musicians from banding together to negotiate with these platforms as a group,\u201d Ross says. \u201cThe platforms are able to divide and conquer them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSimilar exemptions have long been granted in other industries. Major League Baseball famously has an antitrust exemption, allowing teams to cooperate on rules and policies. So too have farmers and agricultural producers, which are allowed to form cooperatives that let them collectively market crops and set prices when negotiating with large buyers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWith this legislation, we\u2019re trying to do something similar here to allow smaller musicians to bargain as a group so they can get better terms when it comes to streaming or AI licensing compensation,\u201d Ross says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe bill already has wide support from music industry stakeholders, including the American Association of Independent Music, the Music Artists Coalition, the National Music Publishers\u2019 Association, as well as other powerful entertainment groups like SAG-AFTRA.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe PWMA was first introduced in 2021 by Rep. Ted Deutch<\/strong> (D-Fla.) to address streaming royalties, then again in 2023 by Ross when language to address AI companies was first added.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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A new proposed federal law would allow independent musicians to team up to collectively negotiate licenses with AI companies and streaming platforms to help them \u201cdemand fair compensation.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[584,6329,153,593,2322,929],"class_list":["post-10746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-artists","tag-indie","tag-law","tag-music","tag-streaming","tag-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}