119th Congress · HR.8994In committeeCongress.gov ↗JSON Report an error

Protect Working Musicians Act of 2026

Summary, written by a model from the CRS summary

Allows small music copyright owners to collectively negotiate, or collectively refuse, music licensing with dominant streaming platforms and generative AI companies.

Model-rated AI relevance 70%: It directly addresses licensing music to generative AI developers. (claude-opus-5-5, Oct 22, 2026)

copyrightlabor

Progress

Introduced
May 21, 2026
Reported by committee
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Passed House
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Passed Senate
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Became law
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Latest action · May 21, 2026

Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

What members said

Releases that cite this bill first, then releases on the same topics.

Gus BilirakisRepublicantoward oversightJul 23, 2026 · same topic

Bilirakis backs the Stealth Bot Prohibition Act to require AI web crawlers to identify themselves and let the FTC penalize deceptive scraping of creators' content.

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Valerie FousheeDemocrattoward oversightJul 23, 2026 · same topic

Foushee supports mandatory bot transparency and FTC/state enforcement against deceptive AI crawlers that scrape content without consent.

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Laurel LeeRepublicantoward oversightJul 23, 2026 · same topic

Lee introduces the Stealth Bot Prohibition Act to impose transparency standards on AI web crawlers, enforced by FTC civil penalties.

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Janice SchakowskyDemocrattoward oversightJul 23, 2026 · same topic

Schakowsky and Warren demand that trade deals not be used by Big Tech to preempt federal and state AI regulation, insisting governments retain the power to hold AI companies accountable.

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Jim BanksRepublicantoward oversightJul 7, 2026 · same topic

Banks urges Commerce/USPTO action to stop Chinese companies from using AI to scrape U.S. patents and steal American IP.

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