There are a handful of pending bills before the 119th Congress that are being closely watched by the music industry. These pieces of federal legislation could affect artists, consumers and companies across many different areas of the business, including songwriting, licensing, tourism, royalties, ticketing and live performances.
Many of these bills have bipartisan support from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and industry players have been heavily involved in advocating for their passage: The Recording Academy and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have signed onto many of them, as have corporate giants like the major record labels and Live Nation.
The legislative process is long and at times difficult to decipher. Many bills get introduced more than once over the years, often with different versions in the Senate and House of Representatives. There are committee reviews, hearings and revisions before a bill makes it to the floor for a congressional vote and, eventually if passed, the desk of the president to be signed into law.
In the interest of compiling all the information in one place, Billboard has put together a list of all the music-related legislation currently before the 119th Congress. Below, you can read about the history behind each bill, who supports it and what impact it would have on the industry.
We’re keeping track of developments for each piece of proposed legislation, and this list will update as bills move through the House and Senate. We’ll also add new bills as they’re introduced and tell you why they matter for the music business.
-
RAP Act
First introduced in 2022, the Restoring Artistic Protection (RAP) Act aims to limit the use of rap lyrics in federal prosecutions. It’s long been controversial to cite lyrics as evidence of a crime, but the prosecutorial strategy has received a spotlight in recent years as it’s been wielded against high-profile rappers like Young Thug, Gunna and Lil Durk.
The RAP Act was reintroduced in 2023 and then again in the House in July 2025, after which it was referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
Co-sponsored by Reps. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), the RAP Act has wide support within the music industry. The Recording Academy and RIAA have thrown their weight behind the bill, as have Warner Music Group (WMG), Universal Music Group (UMG) and Live Nation.
-
NO FAKES Act
The Nurture Originals, Foster Art and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act is Congress’ attempt to protect artists from artificial intelligence (AI) deepfakes. This legislation would turn a person’s digital likeness into a form of intellectual property, allowing artists to license out these rights and sue those that publish deepfakes without their consent.
The NO FAKES Act was first introduced in 2024 and then revamped twice — once in April 2025 and then again in May 2026. The updated version of the bill in both the House and Senate includes additional notice and takedown provisions that could insulate hosting sites from liability – and platforms including YouTube and Spotify are now on board as supporters. The proposed law cleared a major hurdle in June 2026, when it was unanimously endorsed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The next step will be a full Senate vote.
The music industry’s major players have supported NO FAKES, including the Recording Academy, RIAA, WMG, UMG and Sony. The bills are sponsored in the Senate by Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.); and in the House by Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), Madeleine Dean (D-Penn.) Nathaniel Moran (R-Tex.), Becca Balint (D-Vt.) and Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.).
-
American Music Fairness Act
Legislators and music industry players have been trying for decades to pass a law requiring terrestrial radio stations to pay performance royalties to artists and record labels. The latest version of this proposed law was introduced in 2021 as the American Music Fairness Act, which has since been re-introduced twice.
Most recently brought back to both the House and Senate in January 2025, the bills aim to close a loophole that allows AM/FM radio stations in the U.S. to only pay publishing royalties – unlike satellite radio stations and online streamers, which have to compensate both songwriters and performers when they plan a track. The bills have been referred to both chambers’ Judiciary Committees. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s intellectual property subcommittee held a hearing in December 2025, during which KISS rocker Gene Simmons testified that it’s “un-American” not to support the legislation.
The American Music Fairness act is co-sponsored in the Senate by Blackburn, Tillis and Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and in the House by Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.). It’s supported by the Recording Academy, RIAA, SoundExchange and the American Federation of Musicians.
-
MAIN Event Ticketing Act
The Mitigating Automated Internet Networks (MAIN) for Event Ticketing Act, initially introduced in 2023, aims to beef up enforcement of President Obama’s Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act.
This legislation would create new reporting and security requirements for online ticket sellers to combat automated bots that jump the line ahead of human buyers. Bills were reintroduced in the Senate in January 2025 and the House in April 2025. The proposed legislation has been approved by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and it is now headed to the floors of both chambers.
The bills are sponsored in the Senate by Blackburn and Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), and in the House by Harshbarger and Rep. Troy A. Carter Sr. (D-La.). They’ve garnered support from the Recording Academy, RIAA, Live Nation and the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA).
-
TICKET Act
The Transparency in Charges for Key Events Ticketing (TICKET) Act was first introduced in 2023 with the aim of reforming the ticket-buying process for concertgoers. The proposed legislation would increase pricing transparency by requiring event promoters to clearly and prominently display a ticket’s full price, including fees and taxes, before checkout.
The legislation passed the House in 2024 but died at the end of the 118th congressional term. Versions were reintroduced in the Senate in January 2025 and the House in February 2025, and it passed the House again in April 2025. The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation approved its bill the same month, and it’s now headed to the Senate floor.
The bills were introduced in the Senate by Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) and in the House by Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.). Supporters include the Recording Academy, Live Nation, Vivid Seats and StubHub.
A prior version of this list incorrectly stated that NIVA supports the TICKET Act. The error has been corrected.
-
Protecting Outdoor Concerts Act
First introduced in 2021 and re-introduced again twice in the years since, the Protecting Outdoor Concerts Act would create an avenue for the Federal Aviation Administration to restrict the airspace around outdoor music festivals and concerts.
Right now, the law allows major sporting events to apply for these sorts of low-flying plane restrictions, but organizers of music events cannot do the same. The bill was most recently introduced to the House in April 2025 by Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) and it’s been referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
Ruiz, whose district includes California’s Coachella Valley, has cited safety risks from airplanes flying too low around the Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals. The proposed legislation has support from AEG, which puts on both of those festivals.
-
TRAIN Act
The Transparency and Responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Networks (TRAIN) Act, first introduced in the Senate in 2024, would create a legal avenue for musicians and other creators to find out if their work was used to train a generative AI model without a license. Technically speaking, the bill would allow artists to subpoena AI developers for their training data through a process similar to one that already exists to combat internet piracy.
It remains an open question whether AI companies are legally required to buy licenses to train their models on existing creative works. Numerous copyright lawsuits over this issue are currently making their way through the courts, including one by the major record labels (though some claims have been settled through licensing deals with AI music services Suno and Udio).
The TRAIN Act was reintroduced in the Senate in July 2025 by Blackburn and Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), and introduced for the first time in the House in January 2026 by Dean and Moran. The bill, which is endorsed by the RIAA and the Recording Academy, has been referred to both chambers’ Judiciary Committees.
-
CLEAR Act
Another AI training-focused bill is the Copyright Labeling and Ethical AI Reporting (CLEAR) Act, which would require tech companies to submit publicly available reports to the U.S. Copyright Office detailing all the protected works used in training data for generative AI models. The legislation also suggests an enforcement mechanism: civil fines for AI companies that fail to complete these disclosures.
Schiff first proposed this legislation, originally titled the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act, during his time in the House of Representatives in 2024. That first bill died without action. Schiff then teamed up with Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) to reintroduce the proposal, renamed the CLEAR Act, in February 2026.
The bill has garnered support from numerous music industry groups, including the RIAA, the Recording Academy, the NMPA and SoundExchange.
-
Protect Working Musicians Act
The Protect Working Musicians Act (PWMA) would allow independent musicians to team up and collectively negotiate licenses with AI companies and streaming platforms. In technical terms, the bill aims to achieve this by exempting indie artists from antitrust scrutiny over group bargaining. Similar exemptions already exist for Major League Baseball, as well as for farmers and agricultural producers.
The PWMA was first introduced in 2021 with a focus on streaming royalties, then it was re-tooled in 2023 to address AI. The PWMA was once again introduced in the House in May 2026 by Reps. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.), Steve Cohen (D-Texas) and Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas). It has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
Supporters of the PWMA include the Recording Academy, NMPA, A2IM and Music Artists Coalition.
-
AI Labeling Act
The AI Labeling Act would require that AI-generated content, including audio, include a watermark disclosing the use of the technology. The onus would be on AI companies and social media platforms to create these tags. As the bill is currently written, music streaming platforms are not included.
Versions of the bill were first introduced in both the House and Senate in 2023 but did not move forward. It was reintroduced in the Senate in June 2026 by Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), John Curtis (R-Utah), and Mark Warner (D-Va.). Music industry supporters include Music Creators North America, the Society of Composers and Lyricists and the Songwriters Guild of America.
-
DEFEND IP Act
The Deterring Extraterritorial Foreign Exploitation of Networks Damaging Intellectual Property (DEFEND IP) Act proposes a new method for U.S. copyright holders to combat overseas digital piracy. Specifically, the legislation would give U.S. judges the power to order the country’s internet service providers to block foreign sites that host infringing music, videos or books.
Both the House and Senate introduced versions of the DEFEND IP Act for the first time in September 2026, and the bills are now with both chambers’ judiciary committees. An earlier legislative proposal to curb foreign internet piracy, known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), failed in 2012 amid strong backlash from the tech industry.
The legislation is sponsored in the Senate by Tillis, Coons, Blackburn and Schiff, and in the House by Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Ben Cline (R-Va.). It’s been endorsed by the RIAA, Recording Academy and A2IM.