Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib is calling on her colleagues to ensure that musicians can actually make a living from their music. On Tuesday, July 26, the Michigan Democrat circulated a letter alerting her colleagues that she would be proposing a new Congressional Resolution to create a new royalty for streaming music. 

While streaming services have become the primary mode of music consumption, many artists have criticized the meager amounts of money they receive, especially as the vast majority of those payouts go to the biggest artists with the most streams. Rep. Tlaib’s resolution, according to a draft obtained by Rolling Stone, calls on the federal government to “establish a new statutory royalty program,” saying it’s the government’s duty “to provide musicians, whose recorded work is listened to on streaming music services, like Spotify, reasonable remuneration through a royalty payment earned on a per-stream basis.”

This new program would be overseen