Fighting For Artists’ Rights
• Don Henley, Dave Matthews, Maren Morris, Anderson .Paak, Meghan Trainor and Shane McAnally are members of a larger group that has joined forces with some of the industry’s top power brokers to form the Music Artists Coalition — a new lobbying group that will represent artists in Washington, DC and state capitals across the U.S.
As first reported by Bloomberg, the board of Music Artists Coalition includes high profile artist managers Irving Azoff, Coran Capshaw and John Silva, as well as attorney Jordan Bromley and publicist Kristen Foster. The Music Artists Coalition will advocate on artists’ behalf in the growing number of music-related disputes in Washington.
The music industry has no shortage of lobbyists in Washington, but none of the largest groups are focused on artists. The Recording Industry Association of America represents record labels, the National Music Publishers’ Association stands up for music publishers and the National Association of Broadcasters reps radio stations. “Artists don’t really have a seat at any table,” Azoff said in an interview with Bloomberg. “Just the fact that we have a powerful group of people will scare everyone else to the table.”
Azoff and his fellow board members will self-fund the organization, and they are in the process of hiring a lobbyist to represent them in Washington. The group has already formed a list of three or four top concerns, such as tech companies’ appeal of a ruling that boosted songwriter royalties. In a statement, Dave Matthews said, “Emerging artists deserve the same opportunity that many of us had — to be able to make a living creating music. It’s important for today’s musicians to pave the way for those in the future.”
