H.R. 8994 119th Congress House

Protect Working Musicians Act of 2026

Official title: To empower independent music creator owners to collectively negotiate with dominant online platforms regarding the terms on which their music may be distributed.

Introduced: May 21, 2026 Introduced by: Deborah K. Ross Democratic · North Carolina See on congress.gov

Commerce

Everywhere this bill has been 2 steps

Introduced

In committee

Reported out

Passed House

Passed Senate

To President

Became law

May 21, 2026

Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

May 21, 2026

Introduced in House

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What's happening now May 21, 2026

Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Plain-English summary Congressional Research Service

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.

Related & companion bills 1

Bill text 1 version

Introduced in House Formatted Text PDF Formatted XML

Source documents hosted by congress.gov.

Committees of jurisdiction 1

Judiciary Committee
House of Representatives

Lobbying activity 2

Registered lobbyists who named this bill in their disclosure filings. Source: federal Lobbying Disclosure Act filings.

DIGITAL MEDIA ASSN
for DIGITAL MEDIA ASSN · District of Columbia · 3rd Quarter 2026 (July 1 - Sep 30)
DIGITAL MEDIA ASSN
for DIGITAL MEDIA ASSN · District of Columbia · 2nd Quarter 2026 (Apr 1 - June 30)

Bodies those filers lobbied

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
2 filings
SENATE
2 filings
U.S. Copyright Office
2 filings
U.S. Trade Representative (USTR)
1 filing

A filing lists the bills it worked on and the parts of government it contacted in separate sections, so these are the bodies those filers named anywhere in the filing, not a per-bill breakdown.

Cosponsors 3

Goldman, Daniel S.

New York · May 29, 2026

Cohen, Steve

Tennessee · May 21, 2026

Doggett, Lloyd

Texas · May 21, 2026

Cite this page click to expand

APA

U.S. Congress. (2026). H.R. 8994: Protect Working Musicians Act of 2026. 119th Congress. Open America. https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-8994/

MLA

"H.R. 8994: Protect Working Musicians Act of 2026." 119th Congress, 2026, Open America, https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-8994/.

Bluebook (legal)

H.R. 8994, 119th Cong. (2026), https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-8994/.

Markdown link

[H.R. 8994: Protect Working Musicians Act of 2026](https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-8994/)