ATTENTION: PA music community

Senator Pat Toomey is threatening to hold up our progress on the historic Music
Modernization Act.

What is the music modernization act?

It’s a bipartisan piece of legislation assembled through years of negotiation and compromise. It will:

• Make it easier to ensure that songwriters get their mechanical royalties when their work is streamed

• Eliminate loopholes that allow services like Sirius XM to play recordings from before 1972 without paying
performers, and other services to have

• Make it easier for producers and engineers to share in digital royalties

Why is Senator Toomey standing in the way of the bill?

The bill is opposed by Music Choice, and they convinced him to try and hold it up.

What the heck is “Music Choice”?

It’s the company behind those weird music-only channels on many cable TV systems. They’re based
in Pennsylvania.

What’s their issue?

Right now Music Choice benefits from a special carveout that allows them to have their royalties
calculated using a different standard than most other digital music services. They are opposing the
bill because they want to continue to pay less than their competitors.

Who owns Music Choice?

It’s a consortium owned by Comcast, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Microsoft,

Motorola, and Sony. These are huge corporations; they can afford to pay artists and labels fairly.

Do artists even see any of the money?

Yes. Digital radio royalties under a statutory license are collected and distributed by Soundexchange,
and divided up with 50% to sound recording copyright owner, 45% to featured artists, and 5% to
backing musicians.

Who supports the bill?

Every major artist organization, every music industry trade group, including the American Association
of Independent Music, unions including AFM, SAG-AFTRA, and AFL-CIO, civil rights groups like the
NAACP!

Why can one senator hold it up when 70 senators have cosponsored?

Because of the limited amount of time for floor debate, uncontroversial bills can proceed through a
special hotline process. But one senator can place a “hold” on a bill and block consensus.