SoundExchange says that U.S. music creators are losing out on $170 million per year in royalties from the use of their sound recordings abroad.
Rights management agency SoundExchange is asking the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to help American music creators get paid fairly for the use of their work abroad.
SoundExchange -- which is designated by the Library of Congress to collect and distribute performance royalties for non-interactive digital music streams -- provides equal treatment to music creators, regardless of nationality, in the distribution of royalties. In other words, it follows the principle of "full national treatment," which ensures that one set of laws in a country equally protects both domestic and foreign works and recordings, including the payment and collection of royalties.
But in a new filing with the USTR for its annual "Special 301" review of intellectual property rights protection, SoundExchange says that six countries deny full national treatment to American producers and performers, because "those countries are not paying them for the same uses that these countries are paying their own national producers and performers" -- specifically, for traditional broadcasts, public performances and some digital uses.