Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte is probably best known for cosponsoring a 2009 “birther bill” and generally being and all-around prick of a man. A couple of days ago he officially introduced a bill that’s been a long time in the making that would change the fundamental nature of how the United States Copyright Office is controlled. H.R 1695 — Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act of 2017, is banal enough sounding to be perfectly evil. Frankly, anytime a Republican mentions the words “accountability” there’s a 99.9999 percent chance that the majority of Americans are being screwed. That rule of thumb holds up here. While it is universally agreed that the Copyright Office needs serious updating, this bill is really only going to change who can control the Copyright Office.
On March 23rd, Reps. Bob Goodlatte and John Conyers introduced a controversial bipartisan bill with over 100 years of history behind it, though you wouldn’t know it from its boring name and seemingly boring topic. It’s called the Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act of 2017 — the key part is that it makes the Register of Copyright a political position appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. That’s in contrast to the current state of affairs, which has been in existence since the creation of the Copyright Office in 1897.
Right now, the Copyright Office is a part of the Library of Congress, and the head of the office — known as the Register of Copyrights — is appointed by the Librarian of Congress, who, in turn is appointed by the president, and approved by the Senate.
The new law would make the Copyright Office its own separate entity and therefore would not have to fall under the Library of Congress and its mission statement to serve the public. Not unlike other departments, it would take away yet another barrier between the public good and the absolute corporate control over the copyright system. As Techdirt points out, right-wingers like to pretend to be “purists” about our constitutional history until it doesn’t serve their purposes. The real push here is change the meaning and function of copyright law. Copyright law is supposed to serve the public good by allowing temporary ownership of ideas in order to incentivize innovation. But copyright law is also supposed to free up those ideas and things to public once a reasonable price has been paid for that innovation.
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Either way, by making this a Presidential appointment, the MPAA and RIAA know that it will give them significantly greater say over who leads the office. Right now they can (and do!) lobby the Librarian of Congress on who should be chosen, but the Librarian gets to choose. One hopes that the Librarian would take into account the larger view of copyright law, and who it's actually supposed to benefit -- and we're hoping that the current Librarian will do so (if given the chance). But making it a Presidential appointment will mean heavy lobbying by industry, and much less likelihood that the public interest is considered.
The usual think tankers and industry folks will tell you -- incorrectly -- that the Copyright Office is only in the Library due to "an accident of history." But that's not the case. The role of both overlap dramatically -- collecting, organizing and cataloging new creative works. Almost everyone agrees that the Copyright Office needs to be modernized, and that the previous Librarian failed (miserably) to do so. But because we had a bad librarian in the past is no reason to remove the Copyright Office entirely from the Library and disconnect it completely to its constitutional moorings designed around getting more creative works to the public.
Here’s the member list of the House Judiciary Committee and the people we need to call to get them to do right by us and our Constitution. You can also see that list below the fold. I’m sure there are numerous people more qualified to discuss copyright law and the problems our Copyright Office and system faces and I welcome the discussion below.
Republicans:
Chairman Bob Goodlatte (VA-06), Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, Jr. (WI-05), Rep. Lamar Smith (TX-21), Rep. Steve Chabot (OH-01), Rep. Darrell Issa (CA-49), Rep. Steve King (IA-04), Rep. Trent Franks (AZ-08), Rep. Louie Gohmert (TX-01), Rep. Jim Jordan (OH-04), Rep. Ted Poe (TX-02), Rep. Jason Chaffetz (UT-03), Rep. Tom Marino (PA-10), Rep. Trey Gowdy (SC-04), Rep. Raúl Labrador (ID-01), Rep. Blake Farenthold (TX-27), Rep. Doug Collins (GA-09), Rep. Ron DeSantis (FL-06), Rep. Ken Buck (CO-04), Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX-04), Rep. Martha Roby (AL-02), Rep. Matt Gaetz (FL-01), Rep. Mike Johnson (LA-04), Rep. Andy Biggs (AZ-05).
Democrats:
Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (MI-13), Rep. Jerry Nadler (NY-10), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CA-19), Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18), Rep. Steve Cohen (TN-09), Rep. Hank Johnson, Jr. (GA-04), Rep. Ted Deutch (FL-22), Rep. Luis Gutierrez (IL-04), Rep. Karen Bass (CA-37), Rep. Cedric Richmond (LA-02), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Rep. David Cicilline (RI-01), Rep. Eric Swalwell (CA-15), Rep. Ted Lieu (CA-33), Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD-08), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Rep. Brad Schneider (IL-10).