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Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, well, it is Country Music Month, and in Nashville, you will hear people say ``it all begins with a song.''

And, indeed, when we think about the playlists on our phones, when we think about the songs that frame our life, that is very true. And we love the fact that we get to celebrate the creative community every single year during Country Music Month. And this week, the Senate should pass a resolution that Senator Kaine and I have filed. It is designating October as National Country Music Month.

Now, Bristol, TN, Bristol, VA, right there on the State line, that is the birthplace of country music. So you have got a little bit of Tennessee and a little bit of Virginia, and we share that richness and that history. And what our resolution does is to highlight our States'--Tennessee's and Virginia's--rich, shared history of fostering creativity, of dreaming those big dreams, and then setting those dreams and thoughts to words and music.

The music that these artists, songwriters, and musicians create has had a profound impact not only on country music as a genre but on the evolution of American music.

Tennessee artists have the unique power to unite us as Americans. With that in mind, I want to thank my colleagues in advance for celebrating our creative community with us and helping designate October as National Country Music Month. But our work is not done. These musicians need our help getting paid for their art, controlling the business side of their careers, and protecting their intellectual property.

I want to highlight a few bills this body must pass to maintain our position as a cultural and artistic leader and a creative hub. The United States is the only democratic nation in the world where artists are not compensated for the use of their songs on AM/FM radio. Now, as I said, we are the only democratic nation that does not compensate these artists. Now, Iran and North Korea are two of the only other countries with this distinction.

Senator Padilla and I have introduced a bipartisan piece of legislation--the American Music Fairness Act--which would right this wrong and ensure performers are compensated when their songs are played on the radio.

Now, Senator Padilla and I could probably have a great discussion about, Does California have more artists and singers and songwriters or does Tennessee? But I think Tennessee probably has more of those artists and songwriters.

Now, not being paid for the use of their music on radio has been a decades-long injustice that hurts Americans at home and abroad. As I said, the United States is the only democratic nation that does not pay for that radio play. So the majority of foreign nations--those who already pay their own artists for radio airplay--currently withhold royalties from American music creators simply because the United States does not reciprocate by paying their performers. This amounts to a massive financial hit for our American artists.

Now, when you talk with them, what you will learn from different royalty rights organizations is our entertainers here are missing out on about $200 million each year in income to those musicians--$200 million a year. That is money that would come from other countries to our American artists if we were to pass the American Music Fairness Act.

(Ms. BUTLER assumed the Chair.)

Senator Padilla and I have worked hard on this. It is bipartisan. We think to not pay these artists is something that needs to be fixed, and that is why we should agree to get the American Music Fairness Act to the President's desk without delay.

Now, I also worked with the late Senator Dianne Feinstein--and, Madam President, we welcome you. We know you have big shoes to fill in Senator Feinstein's seat. Senator Feinstein and I often talked about the importance of keeping this American creative community here and keeping that community vibrant, and she and I worked together to introduce a piece of bill that is called the HITS Act. This is the Help Independent Tracks Succeed, HITS.

Now, this bill would allow independent music creators--including musicians, technicians, songwriters, and producers--to deduct 100 percent of recording production expenses in the year that those expenses are incurred. The Federal Tax Code already allows film, television, theater productions to do this, and there is no reason not to give our music creators this same benefit. Think about that. Somebody goes in; they book that studio time; they lay down those tracks; they lay down those vocals; you get a producer that produces it; the musicians play on it; the technicians come in and tweak this-- and they cannot deduct all of that expense. This is not fair, especially when you consider that TV, film, theater--they can all deduct 100 percent.

So Senator Feinstein and I worked on this, got it ready to go. This is another one that needs to pass. These two pieces of legislation really have something very important in common. They recognize that entertainment as a career is both a creative pursuit and it is a very fragile business model. It requires that those individuals be able to exercise their intellectual property rights to benefit from their creations.

And one of the top concerns I hear from entertainers and their teams is the extent to which AI will--and already has--damaged their businesses. So we have another issue that has come on. In addition to not being fully compensated, then these entertainers are looking at the impact that artificial intelligence is going to have on their business.

Now, Congress is already late to the AI issue. We all know that, and I am delighted that we are beginning to see bipartisan interest in moving forward some legislation on guidelines and guardrails for artificial intelligence.

Creators have already begun to see that their voices, their likenesses, and their styles of music are used without their consent. And the danger to their livelihoods is real because they are not being compensated for their music that is used to train AI models that are actually going to take away the ability for them to make money on what they have created.

So in addition to not being paid for radio play, in addition to not being able to deduct production expense, now--here it comes--AI is going to mimic them and use name, image, likeness, voice cloning and take away more of their ability.

So Senator Coons and I have released a discussion draft on a piece of legislation to help protect these artists. It is called the NO FAKES Act. The NO FAKES Act would hold individuals, companies, and platforms accountable for digital replicas created or used without the consent of the individual that is being cloned or depicted in that replica. So it allows an entertainer to protect themselves, the replication of their voice, of their mannerisms, of their musical style.

Well, Hank Williams, Jr., has been quoted as saying, ``Country music singers have always been a real close family.'' He is pretty right about that. And just like any family, I love it when you see all of these entertainers who are, in essence, competitors competing for radio time and studio time and tours and dates on their tours. They are competing for it all, but they come together, and they let you know when they need something and when something needs to be done. And addressing this AI issue is something that needs to be done.

So I would encourage my colleagues to talk to entertainers in their States and talk with them about the American Music Fairness Act, the HITS Act, and the NO FAKES Act, and what it would do to give them that control over their art, their name, their image, their likeness.

You know, here in the United States, whether we want to argue about: Is Tennessee the biggest or does California have the most or is Virginia the real home and who produces the most records and lays down the most recording? What we can all agree on is that the United States of America is the hub for entertainment. It is where everyone wants to come, and, of course, we like that ingenuity and that creativity, and we love it that artists come to Nashville and say: We want to record that Nashville sound. Let us keep this industry viable.

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