United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement

Floor Speech

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Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, in addition to my strong and unequivocal support for the USMCA, I note that my committee is about to undertake a yearlong review of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, with the goal of modernizing it.

Back in 1998, the internet was still a fledgling industry, so much so that it is difficult to recall a time when email was a novel form of communication and you could go take a coffee break in hopes that the web page you wanted would have fully loaded on your computer by the time you returned. It was in this era that the DMCA attempted to strike a reasonable balance between content creators and the operators of online billboards. The DMCA offered immunity to new, emerging platforms in exchange for reasonable enforcement efforts, including quickly taking down copyrighted materials they learned about violations. In 1998, there were no iPhones. There was no Facebook and no YouTube. Netflix opened that year as a mail-order DVD store. For a time, the DMCA worked.

President Trump has led the way to establish a new paradigm for trade agreements that protect American interests, and the USMCA provides for long overdue updates to NAFTA, but the mechanisms of the DMCA to deter copyright infringement need to be updated. Technology has changed faster than anyone could have ever imagined, and the existing DMCA simply isn't able to address these new developments. The original DMCA was simply not designed for the kind of global data and advertising platforms that we have seen develop over time. As is so often the case, the technology has outpaced the law.

I intend to hold a series of hearings this year to explore whether the DMCA needs updating in order to promote the creative economy in the 21st century. This work is critical to North Carolina jobs in the creative sector. For example, the motion picture and television industry is directly responsible for more than 19,000 jobs in North Carolina, representing more than $1 billion in wages in the State. Productions like the series ``Reprisal'' and the upcoming film Uncle Frank were made in North Carolina in 2019. The good, high-wage jobs in the film and television industry, from directors, musicians, and actors, to drivers, makeup artists, painters, and set decorators, are at risk if the products they make lose money due to internet theft.

Without prejudging what changes may be necessary to the DMCA, it is important that our future trade agreements can keep up with the advances of U.S. copyright law. I look forward to working together with my colleagues in the House and Senate and with the White House to ensure we improve the DMCA and create more export opportunities for U.S. businesses and workers in the process. As always, our trade agreements and our copyright law should do all they can to create good incentives and empower market forces to solve problems.

Mr. President, I applaud the inclusion of national treatment language in this agreement, requiring nondiscriminatory treatment of American creators and their goods.

This protects many American goods, of course, but I want to make special note that the inclusion of this provision in USMCA will help undo one particular instance of discrimination/unfair treatment against American creators. It will help ensure that American music creators are fairly compensated when their recordings are played in Canada and Mexico.

Our expectation is that American performers will see an increase in royalty compensation as a result. As it stands today, Canadian artists receive all royalties due under U.S. law for the use of sound recordings here. Those royalties totaled nearly a billion dollars last year for all recordings.

We afford the recordings of all foreign nationals with the same rights due for the recordings of American artists. In Canada, however, royalties collected for radio airplay and other nondigital public performances of sound recordings made by Americans currently are NOT shared with the American performers who create them.

I encourage the administration to ensure inclusion of this protection for American creators in all trade agreements going forward. American music is by far the most listened to in the world, and we should do all we can to ensure our American music creators are treated fairly by our trade partners.

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