AEMI Statement for the Record of January 13th Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Hearing on Digital Trade
January 12, 2026
Dear Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Sanchez,
I wish to share the Arts, Entertainment, and Media Industries (AEMI) coalition’s perspective on the topic of the Subcommittee’s January 13th hearing, “Maintaining American Innovation and Technology Leadership.” The hearing topic is directly relevant to the AEMI coalition, which consists of national unions that represent professionals in the arts, entertainment, and media industries. By virtue of its size and scope of coverage, the AEMI is the leading voice in the labor movement on public policy in the arts, entertainment, and media industries.
The AEMI unions’ members are actors, cinematographers, choreographers, dancers, directors, musicians, photographers, recording artists, stage managers, singers, technicians, stagehands, and other crafts. Their talents, ingenuity, and skills go into innovative, dynamic creative works that tell the story of America to worldwide audiences. In turn, union creative professionals help power a sector of the economy that regularly generates four percent of the United States’ gross domestic product (GDP), creates a positive trade balance, and employs more than five million people.
Trade policy plays an essential role in ensuring that America’s creative sector continues to lead and the people who work in the sector can continue to thrive. U.S. trade agreements should open markets for music, film, television, and the other content that the AEMI unions’ members help create. The agreements should also set high standards to promote the types of good, sustainable careers that the AEMI unions and their members have cultivated in their industries, and that we should expect to see in all industries in the United States.
Union creative professionals especially depend on trade policy that provides for strong copyright protections and an effective copyright enforcement system for their economic security. While not typically the copyright holder, many of these middle-class workers earn collectively bargained pay and contributions to their health insurance and pension plans from the sales and licensing of the content they help create. In 2023, for instance, creative professionals represented by the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), Directors Guild of America (DGA), International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), and Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) received nearly $3 billion in residuals. In addition, union creative professionals’ future work opportunities depend on legitimate sales and licensing.
Trade policies that promote strong copyright protections and individual intellectual property rights are particularly important in the era of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Absent worldwide safeguards, generative AI will be used as a sophisticated, deceptive tool for content theft, unauthorized digital replication of individual’s voices and likenesses, and cultural misappropriation. Developers will be incentivized to train their AI technologies on the creative works and the creative talents that the AEMI unions’ members develop, design, and bring to life.
The U.S. should address other countries’ efforts to cultivate AI industries by undermining US copyright law and the American creative sector. Several countries have already implemented broad text and data mining (“TDM”) exceptions that weaken copyright protections in order to allow companies to train their AI models on copyrighted material without consent or compensation. Other countries are also considering proposed copyright exceptions for TDM.
When countries effectively subsidize the development of AI industries by permitting companies to ingest US film, television, and music content to train their AI systems without compensation or consent, that lost revenue cannot be invested into future projects, which, in turn, would mean less work for the AEMI unions’ members. Union professionals will have lost out on pay, health insurance, and retirement plan contributions tied to authorized sales and streaming. In addition, the AEMI unions’ members may then also effectively have to compete against themselves in the form of the AI outputs created as a result of other countries' policies.
In closing, thank you for considering the AEMI’s perspective on how U.S. trade policy can maintain American innovation and technology leadership. Union creative professionals rely more than ever on trade policies that provide strong, effective copyright protection to secure their livelihoods in today’s digital era.
If you have any questions, please contact me or DPE Assistant to the President/Legislative Director, Michael Wasser at mwasser@dpeaflcio.org.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Dorning, President
Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO (DPE)