The Recording Academy's annual Music Advocacy Day initiative is the music community's opportunity to make its voice heard and ensure lawmakers understand the needs of music creators nationwide. Each year during Music Advocacy Day, the Recording Academy connects its members with their elected congressional representatives in their local communities to discuss issues affecting the livelihoods of songwriters, performers, and studio professionals.
Over the past decade, Music Advocacy Day has grown to become the nation's largest grassroots advocacy movement for music and music-makers, securing policy wins and protections for all music creators. This year, the Recording Academy continues its ongoing mission of fighting for the rights of all music creators and ensuring pro-music policy at the national, state and local levels with the return of Music Advocacy Day 2025.
Celebrating its 11th year this month, Music Advocacy Day 2025 takes place nationwide on Thursday, Sept. 25, during which the Recording Academy and its members will progress impactful policy changes benefiting the wider music community.
The Recording Academy has outlined three clear priorities for Music Advocacy Day 2025, including protection from AI theft, the passage of the NO FAKES Act, and critical funding for the arts.
Music Advocacy Day 2025 is about protecting creativity, promoting fairness in the digital age, and strengthening America's arts infrastructure. With preparation, your participation at Music Advocacy Day 2025 will help move pro-music policy forward and ensure that the voices of music creators are heard loud and clear throughout the nation.
To help Recording Academy members prepare for and maximize their impact at Music Advocacy Day 2025, here's a guide outlining everything you need to know, including the key issues and legislation.
Know The Key Issues
This year at Music Advocacy Day, the Recording Academy will focus on three key tenets:
Protecting Creators From AI Theft: Say "No" To Unlicensed Training Of AI
Right now, generative artificial intelligence (AI) companies want to exploit music and other creative works to train their models without asking for permission or compensating creators. But stealing isn't innovation, and training AI models on copyrighted work isn't "fair use."
Strong intellectual property protection fuels American innovation. AI tech giants pay for chips, servers, energy, and infrastructure, so they should also pay for the creative inputs that make their technologies possible.
At Music Advocacy Day 2025, advocates will push Congress to say "no" to unlicensed AI training and support strong intellectual property protections.
Pass The NO FAKES Act
Artists are embracing the potential for innovation using AI, but commonsense guardrails are essential to preserve the essence of human creativity. The bipartisan NO FAKES Act creates a federal property right to protect artists and other individuals from having their image, voice, or likeness misused by generative AI to create deepfakes and clones without consent.
With balanced remedies and protections for free speech, the NO FAKES Act has widespread support from both the creative community and key tech stakeholders.
Invest In The Arts: Fully Fund The National Endowment For The Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) reaches every congressional district, building creative infrastructure in local communities and expanding access to the arts. Representing just 0.003 percent of the federal budget, the NEA also provides a high return on investment: Historically, every NEA grant dollar spent leverages another $9 in private and other public matching funds.
Music and the arts are woven throughout our country's history. As America approaches its 250th anniversary next year, adequate funding is essential as the NEA is called upon to support this milestone celebration.
The Recording Academy advocates for the full funding of the NEA at $207 million for fiscal year 2026.
Review The Advocacy Resources
For a helpful overview ahead of Music Advocacy Day 2025, download and read our Issue Brief for a summary of the key topics. Make sure to print a copy to bring along and share it with your representative.
Prepare Your Personal Story
Think about how AI misuse, image and voice cloning, or arts funding has impacted you or your community directly. Prepare a short, personal example to share in your congressional meeting — it makes your advocacy more real and more powerful.
Share The Message
Download our Music Advocacy Day social toolkit to help us spread the word and inform your community about the issues we're addressing on this vital day.
Engage On Music Advocacy Day
Be on time for your scheduled meetings with congressional offices.
Stick to the key points: AI theft protections, NO FAKES Act, and NEA funding.
Listen actively, thank lawmakers for their time, and leave behind a copy of the Issue Brief.
Capture The Moment
Capture moments with your lawmaker and tag them in your social media posts. Send your content to recordingacademy@socialintelagency.com along with details of where your meeting took place and the names and social handles of everyone in your photo. The Recording Academy will reshare your photos and videos throughout Music Advocacy Day 2025.
Follow Up & Stay Connected
Send a thank-you email to the offices you met with, reiterating the importance of supporting and protecting creators and funding the arts.
For questions, reach out to the Recording Academy's Advocacy & Public Policy department at musicadvocacyday@grammy.com.
For more updates on Music Advocacy Day and ways to take action, visit the Recording Academy Advocacy page, visit the Music Advocacy Action page, and follow our Recording Academy Advocacy Facebook page for updates on progress and next steps.
