The deadline for Recording Academy members to register for District Advocate Day is Friday (Sept. 8). The Academy calls the day, which is about for Oct. 5 this yr, “the most important grassroots advocacy motion for music and its makers.”
On District Advocate Day, Recording Academy members go to the native district workplaces of their elected representatives to debate points affecting their livelihoods and careers. together with fairer compensation for songwriters, performers, and studio professionals.
In a video message urging members to enroll, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason, jr. mentioned “It’s an opportunity for us as music folks to speak on to individuals who make the legal guidelines that have an effect on us. …It’s essential that the people who create and carry out that music will not be held again by outdated and unfair laws. So, be a part of the Recording Academy as we work to make sure that music and all its makers are valued at the moment and into the longer term.”
Mason added that members gained’t be despatched off to conferences with their elected representatives (or, typically, their staffs) unprepared. After members register, “the Recording Academy advocacy workforce will set you up with the supplies and data it’s worthwhile to be a profitable advocate.”
Focus areas this yr will embrace AI, stay occasion ticketing reform, the RAP (Restoring Inventive Safety) Act and the HITS (Serving to Impartial Tracks Succeed) Act. The RAP Act and the HITS Act had been additionally priorities final yr, however these payments have but to develop into legislation.
Whereas conferences are usually held in native district workplaces, some conferences are held in local people areas like a recording studio, efficiency venue, or different music-related enterprise.
District Advocate Day was created in 2014. It has been held yearly since besides 2021, when the Academy pivoted to a smaller, digital “Behind the Report x Advocacy” Day.” The 2020 occasion, amid the pandemic, was digital. In 2022 it returned in particular person.
Practically 2,000 Academy members took half within the occasion final yr, which was held on Oct. 6, 2022. They had been concerned with nearly 200 scheduled conferences, reaching 75% of Congress. Conferences passed off throughout 44 states and the District of Columbia.
Final yr, Recording Academy members advocated for 4 payments being thought of by the 117th Congress – the HITS Act, the RAP Act, the PEACE (Selling Peace, Training, and Cultural Change) By way of Music Diplomacy Act and the American Music Equity (AMFA) Act.
So, what occurred to these payments?
The PEACE By way of Music Diplomacy Act was signed into legislation by President Biden as part of the 2023 Nationwide Protection Authorization Act in December 2022.
The RAP Act continued to achieve supporters after District Advocate Day 2022. The invoice was reintroduced within the Home within the 118th Congress at Grammys on the Hill Advocacy Day in April 2023; the Academy is trying in direction of it being launched within the Senate.
In December 2022, the Home Judiciary Committee handed the AMFA Act out of committee. The favorable voice vote — with no recorded votes in opposition to the invoice — marks probably the most important motion by Congress on efficiency rights within the final 12 years. The invoice was reintroduced within the 118th Congress by Sens. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Reps. Darrell Issa (D-CA) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) in February 2023 with Recording Academy assist.
The HITS Act continued to achieve supporters in each the Home and Senate after District Advocate Day 2022. This yr, it was reintroduced on a bipartisan, bicameral degree within the 118th Congress by Reps. Linda Sánchez (D-CA) and Ron Estes (R-KS), and Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) in February 2023 with Recording Academy assist.
