Fan Alliance is about fixing a broken music economy — broken for fans who are being priced out of concerts or can’t get tickets when they go on sale because of the bots and scalpers. It’s broken for artists who can’t earn a living from streaming or are fighting with a flood of fake songs created by A.I. platforms.
The bottom line: fans need artists to create the music we love and artists need fans to create and share their music. Together we create community.
I was in North Carolina last month for a panel discussion with Rep. Ross and several amazing North Carolina musicians including Rissi Palmer, Tift Merritt, Shirlette Ammons and Laura Balance. Mariah Czap from Exceleration Music pulled us together.
Here’s how Representative Ross explained it:
“What [PWMA] lets musicians do is work together, collaborate so that they can negotiate to get paid. Because the music industry does not always respect their work. We know that AI steals their intellectual property. And the only way they are going to be able to stick up for themselves is to be able to work together. So we just saw the antitrust case against Ticketmaster and Live Nation. And that is an example of corporate America using its power to take power away from our musicians. What our bill does is give the power to the musicians.”
Some background:
Independent artists today are prohibited from banding together to collectively negotiate with streaming services or A.I. tech companies for higher streaming royalties or A.I. protections. It would be a violation of anti-trust law because each artist technically operates as an independent business. Anti-trust law is important to prevent monopolies but it’s hurting idependent artists.
PWMA would create a narrow exemption in anti-trust law to allow artists to collectively negotiate with powerful industry players.
Rep. Ross added more background:
“We are going to get [Congress] to admit that antitrust law cannot just benefit big corporations. It was invented by Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, to bust up corporations that take things away from everyday people. And we are going to use antitrust law to give those things back to our artists and ultimately to the American people. “
It’s an uphill battle in the current Congress, but Fan Alliance and a number of artist
advocacy groups will be launching a campaign to build support and enough power to counteract lobbying by streaming services and tech companies.
Enjoy some music this summer. I will be.
