ASCAP president and chairman Paul Williams has urged Congress in the US to protect songwriter’s rights and preserve the value of voluntary collective licensing as it considers ways to reform music licensing.

Williams, an award-winning songwriter himself, gave his testimony before the US House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet earlier this week.

The US Copyright Office has just begun a study on the effectiveness of current existing licensing methods, while the US Department of ...