Internet Association Moves to Influence Copyright and Trade Debates on Capitol Hill
The Internet Association’s Thursday push for Congress to renew Trade Promotion Authority and to consider limitations and exceptions for copyright laws prompted applause and skepticism from music licensing and trade experts. IA released a report emphasizing the Internet’s key role in global trade and arranged for three small-business owners to meet with lawmakers to underline the “importance of including digital trade provisions in future trade legislation,” an IA news release said. IA championed Communications Act Section 230, which provides liability protections for Internet intermediaries, in the report. IA sent a letter to the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees’ leadership Jan. 14 asking for TPA's passage and flexible copyright provisions (see 1501150052).
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“The Internet industry calls on Congress to pass trade legislation that recognizes the importance of Internet-enabled trade,” IA CEO Michael Beckerman said in the release. “When the last TPA bill was passed in 2002, some of the most well known Internet companies had either just come into existence or did not exist as [sic] all.” It’s “time U.S. trade policy reflects the integral role that digital trade and the Internet plays in our modern economy,” Beckerman said.
IA represents “powerhouse players in the digital economy, so it's safe to say that their influence in the policy space is considerable and growing,” Casey Rae, Future of Music Coalition CEO, said. IA’s members include Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, PayPal and Yahoo. With the exception of its $360,000 in Q4, IA has spent $400,000 every quarter since it began filing lobbying forms in Q1 2013, according to the federal lobbying disclosure database. It has lobbied on copyright and patent “reform” issues and a host of trade agreements.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation opposes Congress giving the White House fast track authority. “Trade agreements should be negotiated openly, and with full opportunity for review by our elected representatives,” said Jeremy Malcolm, EFF senior global policy analyst. “Current proposals to renew trade promotion authority (fast track) would prevent Congress from overseeing these sweeping deals, which is something that EFF cannot support.”
Like IA, EFF “strongly supports balanced copyright policy and intermediary liability rules that protect online expression, but unlike them, we don't believe that trade agreements are the right vehicle to achieve these goals,” Malcolm said. Trade agreements like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty and Trade in Services Agreement are “woefully lacking in transparency, and also involve a much too narrow set of stakeholders,” he emailed us. “Using copyright or intermediary liability rules as bargaining chips against things like market access for sugar or dairy products creates absolutely the wrong incentives.”
“Most people would support 'balanced' copyright laws, but what balance looks like probably depends on one's market position and agenda,” Rae said. “Limitations on liability for Internet services has resulted in innovations that creators of all backgrounds use every day.” Safe harbor laws in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act are likely to become a “hot-button issue in the current Congressional copyright review,” Rae said. IA’s report “may be a way of getting ahead of the curve in terms of describing the benefits of the current system,” he said.
IA’s report is “focused on perpetuating and expanding the belief that the Internet makes you special,” said attorney Chris Castle, who represents artists and musicians and has worked with digital music services. The recent terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo “brought into clear focus for lawmakers what has been true for years: Internet companies, particularly Google’s YouTube and Facebook get significant traffic from jihadi recruitment videos, many of which are monetized by unsuspecting advertisers,” he emailed. Castle said recent statements by lawmakers in France and the U.K. on the EU’s right to be forgotten ruling should be “fair warning” to IA that the “world is expecting their members to take on more responsibility, not less.” IA wants its members to “bear even less responsibility in the guise of ‘Internet freedom’ -- the freedom to get away with it.” Facebook, Google and IA didn’t comment.
Copyright issues for artists are “sometimes more complicated,” Rae said. “The smaller creatives may not have the resources to keep up with the scale of potential infringement,” but it's the “independent musicians and labels that are most likely to make use of new innovations that are enabled by the safe harbors,” he said, saying YouTube is the “biggest global destination for music discovery.” Negotiating that “balance” between small- and medium-sized content creators and web developers is something lawmakers should take into “close consideration,” Rae said.