MIC Coalition to outgoing President Donald Trump regarding ASCAP and BMI Consent Decrees

1. January 22, 2020
The Honorable Donald J. Trump
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
We write as the MIC Coalition, a diverse group of America’s leading trade associations,
representing over 2.5 million American businesses spanning every community in every state in
the nation.
We represent the interests of more than 1 million restaurants and other foodservice
outlets employing almost 15.3 million people; 54,200 hotel and lodging establishments; 1 million
retail stores; half a million on-and off-premise retail beverage alcohol licensees (bars, taverns,
casinos and package stores); tens of thousands of local radio and television stations; 6,300
breweries; 10,000 wineries; plus tens of thousands of movie theaters, apartment buildings, arenas,
and other venues. We are writing to urge that your Administration take no action that would
modify, sunset or terminate the critical, competitive protections afforded to our businesses by
consent decrees covering how music is licensed to them by the songwriter industry.
MIC’s members are united in the need for a fair and efficient means to license music. The
businesses we represent – from the family-run restaurant or tavern in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to the
department store in Phoenix, Arizona, to the hotel in Tampa, Florida – devote considerable
financial resources to obtaining necessary licenses in order to play music, and ensuring rights
holders are properly compensated.
For decades, the Department of Justice has ensured that there exists an efficient and fair
means for licensing music through successful antitrust consent decrees with the American Society
of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music, Inc (BMI), the two
collectives that control more than 90% of all musical works performance rights. The blanket
licenses that ASCAP and BMI offer are critical to the economic functioning of the music
marketplace, as they provide a one-stop-shop for our businesses to purchase a single license
covering millions of songs, and allow musicians the ability to offer their creative works to a mass
audience of consumers and receive the royalties they are owed.
Despite these mutual benefits, ASCAP and BMI are walking antitrust violations. This is
because, in addition to their sheer market dominance, the primary function of ASCAP and BMI is
to fix prices on behalf of hundreds of thousands of otherwise competing songwriters and music
publishers. The Justice Department’s consent decrees successfully mitigate these antitrust harms,
while still allowing ASCAP and BMI to provide the efficiencies necessary for the market to
function.
The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division is currently reviewing hundreds of legacy
consent decrees for possible termination or modification. Many of these consent decrees are
outdated, and where they are no longer necessary to protect competition, they should be ended.
However, the ASCAP and BMI decrees are just as important from a competition standpoint today
as when they first went into effect decades ago. In fact, today’s entire music ecosystem has been
built around the market protections of these two consent decrees. As a result, American

2. consumers currently have greater access to music, and more innovative ways to legally enjoy
their favorite songs, than ever before.
Ending or even altering the ASCAP and BMI consent decrees will have significant
negative impacts on “Main Street” businesses across the country. These consent decrees are the
only barrier standing between local businesses and monopoly pricing. The consent decrees also
provide businesses licensing certainty and the assurance that they will not face potentially ruinous
copyright infringement litigation. Should the Antitrust Division end or significantly alter these
decrees, our businesses will be forced to pay far greater costs for music, not only threatening jobs
but leading ultimately to less music being played, which will also harm songwriters.
Businesses across the country have overwhelmingly appealed to the Antitrust Division to
leave the ASCAP and BMI consent decrees unchanged. Realizing the likely disruption to the
marketplace, many music creators have also urged the Division not to alter these decrees. And,
given the resulting harms in every district, Congress, on a bipartisan basis, has repeatedly voiced
concerns, going so far as to pass legislation requiring greater transparency into the Antitrust
Division’s review of these two decrees.
Americans enjoy the most vibrant music market in the world. The ASCAP and BMI
consent decrees are a critical part of this success story. Should the Antitrust Division decide to
end, sunset or alter these consent decrees, it would introduce enormous disruption into the
marketplace with immediate broad-ranging adverse economic impacts. We ask that your
Administration continue to promote marketplace competition and efficiency by preserving the
ASCAP and BMI consent decrees in their current form.
Sincerely,
The MIC Coalition
[CCs]
The Honorable Mike Pence, Vice President of the United States
The Honorable William Barr, Attorney General of the United States