September 22, 2020

The Honorable Robert E. Lighthizer
United States Trade Representative
600 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20508
Dear Ambassador Lighthizer:
As your negotiations on a United States-United Kingdom Trade Agreement progress, weurge you to make full national treatment for American music creators a priority. A U.S.-UK
agreement presents an historic opportunity to stop the UK’s practice of discriminating against
U.S. performers by denying them the full protections available to UK performers under theirlaws. Your success in achieving this protection in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement(USMCA) and your persistence in confirming its implementation in Canada was welcomeprogress. Ensuring national treatment for American artists in the UK would both establish anexpectation for future agreements and represent meaningful progress toward eliminating themore than $330 million global shortfall in royalties imposed upon American music creators
every year because of this discrimination.
We should expect all of America’s trading partners to extend U.S. music creators thesame rights and protections afforded to other music creators under their laws. Discrimination
against U.S. performers in the UK is particularly troubling, however, given the significant
income UK music creators receive as beneficiaries of the digital performance right under U.S.
law.
In the U.S., all music creators, regardless of their nationality, are entitled to receive
royalties paid for the use of a sound recording. While the scope of rights protecting the use ofsound recordings in the U.S. is more limited than in most countries, the digital performance rightin US law has been the largest single source of sound recording performance royalties in theworld for many years. The result is that UK performers enjoy the same protections as American
performers when their recordings are used by music platforms in the United States and are
significant beneficiaries of U.S. royalty collections. In 2019 alone, SoundExchange paid $37
million in U.S.-generated royalties to British artists and record labels, a sum so significant that itwas noted as a highlight in the British collecting society’s annual report. In return, however, U.S.
artists and labels represented by SoundExchange received only $1.3 million of the reported $236
million in domestic royalty collections in the UK. Despite the British collecting society gathering
royalties paid for both FM radio broadcasts and public performances (e.g., plays in bars,restaurants, and other public places) of American sound recordings, American artists neverdirectly receive those royalties because of this unfair lack of national treatment.

We urge you to insist that the UK eliminate this mistreatment of American performers. If
the United States is going to continue to treat UK performers and record labels equally in the
distribution of royalties from the United States, American performers should likewise expect
equal treatment under UK law. We applaud the progress you made in USMCA to reduce theworldwide royalty deficit facing American music creators, and we urge you to vigorously pursue
equal treatment for America’s music creators as you negotiate the U.S.-UK free trade agreement
and all future trade agreements.
Sincerely,Judy Chu
Member of Congress

George Holding
Member of Congress

Linda T. Sánchez
Member of Congress

Ron Estes
Member of Congress

Nanette Diaz BarragánMember of Congress

Daniel T. Kildee
Member of Congress

Don Beyer
Member of Congress

Darin LaHood
Member of Congress

Ken Buck
Member of Congress

Debbie Lesko
Member of Congress

Tony Cárdenas
Member of Congress

Ted W. Lieu
Member of Congress

Ben Cline
Member of Congress

Kenny MarchantMember of Congress

Doug Collins
Member of Congress

Brian Mast
Member of Congress

J. Luis Correa
Member of Congress
Val B. Demings

Stephanie Murphy
Member of Congress
Jerrold Nadler

Member of Congress

Member of Congress

Theodore E. Deutch
Member of Congress

Bill Pascrell, Jr.
Member of Congress

Veronica Escobar
Member of Congress

Chellie Pingree
Member of Congress

Adriano Espaillat
Member of Congress

Jamie Raskin
Member of Congress

Brian Fitzpatrick
Member of Congress

Guy Reschenthaler
Member of Congress

Matt Gaetz
Member of Congress

Martha Roby
Member of Congress

Jimmy Gomez
Member of Congress

Mary Gay Scanlon
Member of Congress

H. Morgan Griffith
Member of Congress

Adam Schiff
Member of Congress

Brian Higgins
Member of Congress

David Schweikert
Member of Congress

Steven Horsford
Member of Congress

F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr
Member of Congress

Mike Johnson
Member of Congress

Jason Smith
Member of Congress

Jim Jordan
Member of Congress

W. Gregory Steube
Member of Congress

Mike Kelly
Member of CongressThomas R. Suozzi
Member of Congress