AM/FM radio still pays US recording artists nothing, and the American Music Fairness Act has stalled again

Every time a US AM or FM station plays a record, the songwriter gets paid and the singer doesn't. The American Music Fairness Act (AMFA) would end that by making broadcast radio pay for sound recordings, as satellite and internet radio already must. As of 23 Oct 2026 it is stuck again. The official records for S.326 and H.R.861 list no action since the bills were sent to the Judiciary Committees in January 2025.

What would the bill change?

US law gives sound-recording owners a public performance right only for digital audio transmissions, and over-the-air broadcasts are exempt. Songwriters and publishers are paid for radio play through ASCAP, BMI, GMR and SESAC, but performers and labels get nothing, as SoundExchange CEO Michael Huppe sets out.

The Senate text, introduced on 30 January 2025 by Marsha Blackburn with Alex Padilla, Thom Tillis and Cory Booker, does four main things:

• Extends the right to all audio transmissions, digital or analogue, and brings terrestrial stations into the existing statutory licence. The Copyright Royalty Judges would set rates and redo them every fifth year.
• Sets flat fees for small stations. A station with under $100,000 in revenue pays $10 a year. Stations with $100,000 to $1.5 million pay $100 if they are public broadcasters and $500 if they are commercial. A station only qualifies if its owner and affiliates took in less than $10 million from all sources.
• Protects the artist's share in direct deals. If a label licenses a station directly, the station must still pay 50% of those royalties through the collective (SoundExchange), split under the statutory formula.
• Protects songwriters and counts promotion. The bill says it does not reduce songwriters' performance royalties, and it tells the judges to weigh whether airplay promotes or substitutes for record sales.

Under 17 U.S.C. § 114(g)(2), that formula sends 45% to featured artists, paid per recording, and 2.5% each to funds for non-featured musicians and vocalists. The other 50% goes to the copyright owner. The House version was introduced a day later by Darrell Issa with Jerrold Nadler, Mark Green, Tom McClintock and Ted Lieu.

Where it stands

The best moment so far was a hearing. On 9 December 2025 the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property heard from Gene Simmons of Kiss, Huppe, and Henry Hinton of Inner Banks Media, a North Carolina broadcaster who sits on the NAB radio board, according to the Recording Academy and the National Association of Broadcasters. Broadcast lawyer David Oxenford reported that Huppe called the US an outlier for not charging the royalty. A hearing isn't a markup, though, and nothing has followed it in either chamber.

As of 23 Oct 2026 the Senate bill has five cosponsors (Padilla, Tillis, Booker, plus Bill Hagerty and Adam Schiff since July 2025). The House bill has 13. Compare that with the broadcasters' answer, a non-binding resolution supporting the Local Radio Freedom Act, which says Congress should not impose any new performance fee on local radio. H.Con.Res.12 has 233 House cosponsors and S.Con.Res.8 has 25 in the Senate.

This has happened before. In the 117th Congress, the House Judiciary Committee ordered AMFA reported by voice vote on 7 December 2022. It never reached the floor and died with that Congress. The 118th Congress versions were referred to committee and went no further.

The money that leaves the country

The case for a radio right isn't only about the US market. In its 2015 music licensing report the Copyright Office repeated its long-held view that the US should adopt a terrestrial performance right. It said the exemption is unfair to rightsholders partly because it curtails the reciprocal flow of royalties into the US. Put simply, where payments to foreign performers depend on reciprocity, American performers lose out because the US offers nothing in return.

Europe complicates the picture. In Case C-265/19 (RAAP), decided on 8 September 2020, the EU Court of Justice held that member states can't exclude performers from outside the European Economic Area from the single equitable remuneration paid when recordings are played. The court also said such limits "may be introduced by the EU legislature". In a July 2026 op-ed, Huppe wrote that some member states are lobbying Brussels to do exactly that, putting "nearly $300 million" a year for American artists at risk. That figure is SoundExchange's estimate and hasn't been audited independently.

What we think

AMFA isn't stalled because the argument is close. It's stalled on headcount. The radio resolution has 234 House members counting its sponsor, against 14 for the bill. For as long as that ratio holds, a hearing every few years changes nothing. We would rather see artists' groups lobby the 25 Senate resolution backers one by one than put their effort into another star-studded hearing.

The bill is better for artists than the debate makes it sound. Under the existing § 114 formula, half of all statutory radio money would be paid to performers rather than routed through the label. That is 45% to featured artists and 5% to session musicians and singers, who currently get nothing from US radio at all. The direct-licence clause closes the obvious way around that: a big label can't do a private deal with a radio group that leaves its artists out. The artists whose records still get heavy airplay have the most to gain.

The broadcasters' "local radio" argument is weaker than it looks. Under the bill, a station owned by a small operator and earning less than $100,000 would pay $10 a year. In our reading the fight is really about bigger stations and the large groups that own them, which fall outside the $1.5 million and $10 million limits. The promotion clause also gives broadcasters a statutory argument for a lower rate at the Copyright Royalty Board. That is a reasonable compromise, not a threat to small stations.

The European point is the one Congress is missing. The RAAP court said in so many words that the EU legislature may limit payments to Americans, and the US exemption is the strongest argument for doing so. Each year AMFA stalls is a year in which some of that money is at risk. That loss would fall on American performers, not on US radio groups.

Sources

• Bill status, S.326 and H.R.861, govinfo, checked 23 Oct 2026
• S.326 text as introduced and H.R.861 text as introduced, govinfo
• H.Con.Res.12 and S.Con.Res.8, Local Radio Freedom Act resolutions, govinfo
• H.R.4130 (117th Congress) bill status, govinfo
• 17 U.S.C. § 114, Cornell LII
• Copyright and the Music Marketplace, executive summary, US Copyright Office, February 2015
• CJEU Case C-265/19, RAAP v PPI, 8 September 2020
• NAB press release on the Hinton testimony, 8 Dec 2025
• Congressional hearing on the American Music Fairness Act, Broadcast Law Blog, 18 Dec 2025
• Gene Simmons at the Senate AMFA hearing, Recording Academy, 17 Dec 2025
• Michael Huppe: EU move could put American music royalties at risk, Music Business Worldwide, 8 Jul 2026