Amidst SoundCloud’s legal warfare and streams reforming the industry landscape, the United States Congress has decided to step in with their own proposition for royalty distribution.
Two representatives, Joe Crowley (D-New York) and Tom Rooney (R-Florida), are proposing an interesting bill aptly titled the AMP Act (H.R. 1457), short for Allocation for Music Producer Act. Essentially, this new bill hopes to honor engineers, producers, and mixers
The AMP Act would allow post-production specialists the ability to negotiate on material older than 1995 (when the 45% digital royalty rate was established). Requests will be submitted to a panel, and if approved, 2% of the 45% would go to the mixer, engineer or producer, and in the case of multiple requesters, the 2% would be split amongst them .
While 2% doesn’t seem like much, it certainly adds up in today’s scene of endless streaming. However, seeing as most post-production engineers are paid a flat fee for there services, cutting into artists’ royalties further might be a bit of an overstep.
We’re sure deadmau5 would approve, though, given his memorable rant against Justin Bieber.
H/T Music Times