Freedom Line Blog

This week, the Chairmen and Ranking Members of both the Senate and House Judiciary committees introduced important legislation – the Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act – which makes the U.S. Register of Copyrights a position appointed by the president subject to Senate confirmation.

CFIF applauds this much-needed proposal to modernize the U.S. Copyright Office in order to meet the new challenges of the 21st century.

Strong copyright protection constitutes a core component of our domestic economy, and our world-leading creative community in particular.  As we at CFIF have often emphasized, it is not by coincidence that the U.S. stands unrivaled as the most creative, innovative, prosperous and powerful nation in human history while consistently maintaining the world’s strongest copyright and other intellectual property (IP) protections.  That relationship is direct and causal.  Our Founding Fathers specifically protected copyright as a fundamental, natural property right in the text of the Constitution.  As a result, American copyright-related industries dominate the globe, from film to television to music to publications, and today those industries contribute over $1 trillion to the American economy, as well as accounting for 5.5 million jobs.  And in an era of increasing global competition, copyright-related industries remain a significant export sector that only keeps growing.

Here’s why the Copyright Office is so crucial in that realm.  It facilitates the thriving U.S. market by administering the registration and recordation systems, as well as advising Congress, our judicial system and other pivotal parties on both domestic and international copyright matters.  Unfortunately, under the current system created over 120 years ago, the Office is currently housed within the Library of Congress, which faces its own challenges and responsibilities.  Consequently, the Copyright Office has struggled to keep pace in the increasingly digital economy despite repeated calls urging modernization.

Accordingly, given the enormous and growing importance of copyright industries to the U.S. economy and exports, we applaud the long-needed legislative effort to modernize the Copyright Office in this way.  Although only a first step in broader Copyright Office reform, it is an important one.  It also offers a rare bipartisan opportunity for Congress in addition to how it helps American consumers and our creative and innovative community.  Every living former Register of Copyrights has urged Copyright Office restructuring, and CFIF agrees wholeheartedly with that broad consensus.  American consumers, our economy and export industries stand to benefit immensely from this important step.

CFIF and other conservative and libertarian groups strongly oppose a new proposal from Obama’s overactive Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate cable television set-top boxes, and that opposition is widely shared among a bipartisan Congressional coalition and even the political left.

Now, even the U.S. Copyright Office has joined the voices criticizing the FCC’s misguided proposal:

The U.S. Copyright Office criticized a federal agency’s plan to open up the market for pay-TV set-top boxes in a letter to lawmakers on Wednesday.  The letter adds political pressure on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, who has been pushing since the beginning of the year for new FCC rules to open up the market for the costly set-top boxes…  ‘As currently proposed, the [FCC] rule could interfere with copyright owners’ rights to license their works as provided by copyright law.’  That is because those who create programming, and hold the copyright on it, have negotiated specific deals with cable companies, and those deals could be upended if other companies also obtain access to the programming through their own set-top boxes.  The letter adds that the Copyright Office is ‘hopeful that the FCC will refine its approach as necessary to avoid conflicts with copyright law and authors’ interests under that law.'”

It’s pretty damning and humiliating that even a counterpart executive branch agency raps the highly-politicized FCC across the knuckles in such an open manner.

Nevertheless, it’s a welcome rebuke against the FCC’s proposal, which constitutes a 1990s-vintage, one-size-fits all mandate to make cable TV set-top boxes artificially compatible with third-party devices.  It additionally constitutes transparent crony capitalism, threatens consumer privacy, undermines the creative community and damages property rights by facilitating piracy of creative content.  And technologically speaking, the set-top box proposal freezes in place an outdated set-top box business model that private innovation and technological advance are already leaving in the dust, with cable companies and other entertainment industry entrepreneurs already abandoning traditional cable boxes in favor of apps and other devices owned and guided by individual consumers.

Hopefully, the Copyright Office’s welcome input helps drive a well-deserved nail into the proposal’s metaphorical coffin.

The U.S. Copyright Office is in need of modernization, and this week brought positive news in that regard.

Congressman Thomas Marino (R – Pennsylvania) and Judy Chu (D – California) introduced draft legislation entitled the Copyright Office for the Digital Economy (CODE) Act to improve the way the office operates.  Although not typically in the headlines every day or in the forefront of public attention, the Copyright Office not only helps set policy as it relates to both domestic and international copyright matters, it administers broad aspects of existing laws.  Copyright-related industries – especially creative industries like entertainment that dominate the globe – constitute an estimated $1 trillion portion of the American economy, and account for an estimated 5.5 million jobs.  Moreover, it’s an export sector that continues to grow.  And with the constant transition to a digital world marketplace, the strain upon our Copyright Office only increases each day.

Among other things, the CODE Act would:  (1) establish the Copyright Office as an independent agency; (2) allow it to physically relocate from the Library of Congress into its own federal building;(3) transfer administrative functions and legal duties from the Library of Congress; (4) allow appointment of a director for one ten-year term following review by a bipartisan and bicameral commission and then consent of the Senate;  and (5) allow the Copyright Office to deliver any and all communications directly to Congress, free of mandatory White House review.

Given the enormous and growing importance of copyright industries, legislation to bring reform and modernization to the Copyright Office is to be welcomed.  The merits of the bill and its individual provisions must still be discussed and debated, but this is a positive first step.  To modernize the office would not only constitute a bipartisan accomplishment for Congress, it would amount to a victory for American consumers, creators and innovators.