Swanson, Martin & Bell, LLP Participates in Recording Academy's 10th Anniversary of Music Advocacy Day
Swanson, Martin & Bell, LLP attorneys Jeffrey S. Becker, Michelle M. Wahl, Amanda J. Alasauskas, and Mark J. McLoughlin participated in the Recording Academy's 10th anniversary of Music Advocacy Day on October 1.
The event aims to facilitate connections between Academy members and their respective congressional representatives, providing a platform to address issues impacting the music community.
The firm's team spoke with many notable individuals, including Illinois Representative Mike Quigley and Senator Dick Durbin, Indiana Representative Frank Mrvan, and Congressman Sean Casten, about critical issues such as the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act, the American Music Tourism Act, the Help Independent Tracks Succeed (HITS) Act, the American Music Fairness Act and many more.
The focus was on the NO FAKES Act. If passed, the NO FAKES Act would create a federal property right protecting artists from having their image, voice, and likeness misused by generative AI. The NO FAKES Act has garnered widespread support across the creative community and represents a bipartisan solution to prevent abusive and manipulative digital replicas (i.e., deepfakes and clones). It provides balanced remedies and protections for free speech.
Learn more about the pro-music bills that can still pass in the 118th congress and the bills that continue to build support:
- Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act (H.R. 9551) would protect the voice and visual likeness of all individuals from unauthorized recreations from generative artificial intelligence (AI).
- American Music Tourism Act (H.R. 8843) would support and increase music tourism by requiring the Commerce Department to implement a plan to increase and attract domestic and international visitors to venues nationwide.
- HITS Act (H.R. 1259) this bill permits independent artists and songwriters to fully deduct up to $150,000 on their taxes for costs associated with new recordings and song demos.
- American Music Fairness Act (H.R. 791) helps unrig the rules and requires corporate broadcasters to fairly compensate artists, session musicians, and vocalists when they play their songs on AM/FM radio.
Learn more about the firm’s Entertainment and Media Law practice here.
