Protect Working Musicians Act of 2026
Latest action · May 21, 2026 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Progress
Where this bill reached, and when. A stage with no date was not reached; one that failed a vote and later carried shows the date it carried.
- IntroducedMay 21, 2026
- Passed HouseNot reached
- Passed SenateNot reached
- To the PresidentNot reached
- Became lawNot reached
Summary
Protect Working Musicians Act of 2026
This bill allows certain individual music creator owners to collectively negotiate music licensing terms with dominant online music distribution platforms or companies engaged in development or deployment of generative artificial intelligence, including the right to collectively refuse to license their music to such platforms or companies.
Individual music creator owners include musicians, producers, and technicians who own the copyright to a recording and either (1) earned less than $1 million in associated revenues during the prior year, or (2) qualify as a record production and distribution small business.
Dominant online music distribution platforms include interactive online services with annual revenues from music distribution of more than $100 million. Generative artificial intelligence includes artificial intelligence systems that are capable of producing novel text, video, images, audio, and other media based on prompts or other forms of inputted data.
Cosponsors 3
Members who signed on, in the order they did. Signatures ran from May 21, 2026 to May 29, 2026, with 2 there on the day it was introduced.
| Seat | Cosponsor | Signed on | |
|---|---|---|---|
| D-TX | Lloyd Doggett | Original | May 21, 2026 |
| D-TN | Steve Cohen | Original | May 21, 2026 |
| D-NY | Daniel S. Goldman | May 29, 2026 |
Actions 2
Everything that happened, newest first.
- May 21, 2026Introduced in House
- May 21, 2026Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Related bills 1
Companion bills and other measures the record links to this one.
| Bill | Title | Relationship | Latest action |
|---|---|---|---|
| HR 9253 | Protect Working Musicians Act of 2026 | Related bill | Jun 10, 2026 |
Subjects
Assigned by the Library of Congress. Policy area: Commerce.
Text 1
Each version as it was printed, newest first.
- May 21, 2026Introduced in House
Everything here is as published by Congress: the summary is the Congressional Research Service's, the action wording is the clerks', and the subjects are the Library of Congress's. How far it got is read from the actions themselves, taking the most recent one of each kind, so a bill that failed a vote and later passed is shown as having passed. Records come from this bill on Congress.gov and govinfo.gov.
