1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Protect Working Musicians Act of 2023 . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) Music is a cultural treasure and a unique source of spiritual inspiration, emotional comfort, community connection, and joy. It is also a powerful economic driver that directly and indirectly supports nearly 2 million American jobs and almost $150 billion in annual economic activity. (2) A healthy music ecosystem is a fundamental bedrock for a healthy society. (3) Fair and competitive markets for the use and licensing of recorded music are integral to a healthy music ecosystem. (4) As music distribution has moved online, the market for use and licensing has become distorted and imbalanced. The largest Dominant Online Music Distribution Platforms use their market power to distort legal requirements and force music creators into licensing agreements that do not reflect market value. Those agreements essentially dictate a price to music creators. If music creators do not agree to licensing terms, the online platforms profit from unlicensed uploads of music anyway. (5) These platforms game the system created by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which allows dominant online platforms to ignore and profit from unlicensed use of music and places the responsibility for finding each and every instance of unlicensed use of music on music creators. This notice and takedown scheme has been described as a gigabit-speed game of whack-a-mole. (6) The trade association for the major record labels spends millions of dollars engaged in this effort which it says has grown to be largely useless. The trade association for the independent record labels agrees, calling it a dysfunctional relic . (7) An effort that is largely useless for major and independent record labels is an exercise in futility for Independent Music Creator Owners—those who own the copyrights and market their work themselves. Independent Music Creator Owners lack the economic, legal, and political resources to stand up to the