House Judiciary Committee Plans New Round of Stakeholder Meetings on Copyright Review
House Judiciary Committee leaders invited all copyright stakeholders who testified at hearings since 2013 about the committee’s Copyright Act review to provide additional feedback on copyright-related policy issues. All of the more than 100 witnesses at House Judiciary’s 20 copyright-related hearings will be able to schedule meetings with committee staff, said House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich. Other copyright stakeholders who didn’t testify also will be able to meet with House Judiciary, the committee said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The additional round of feedback is the next step in House Judiciary’s review, which is meant to “ensure that our nation’s copyright laws keep pace with the digital age,” Goodlatte said in a news release. Conyers said he hopes the additional stakeholder feedback will help House Judiciary narrow down the policy areas it will focus on via legislation, saying the review has “highlighted several areas where the copyright community can potentially find common ground.”
Witnesses from past House Judiciary copyright hearings told us they're very interested in scheduling meetings with committee staff, which they said are likely to begin during Congress’ August recess. The additional meetings are “a pretty sane way for them to internalize and re-comprehend what was a really long hearing process,” said Future of Music Coalition CEO Casey Rae. He testified before House Judiciary’s IP Subcommittee in July 2014 on copyright termination rights and the length of copyright terms (see 1407160091). Since House Judiciary “started holding these hearings, there’ve been several developments in the marketplace and various policy proposals, so this is a smart way for them to dive back into the deep end of the pool,” Rae said. “What’s difficult is when you’re moving from stakeholder to stakeholder, you’re going to get a lot of competing information.” Association of American Publishers (AAP) Vice President-Legal and Governmental Affairs Allan Adler was one of several industry stakeholders who told us they’re also considering meeting with House Judiciary pending further consultations.
Rae said he’ll focus “on the disparity in royalty obligations in the radio universe,” particularly given the April introduction of the Fair Play Fair Pay Act. HR-1733 would require terrestrial radio stations to begin paying performance royalties and would require digital broadcasters to begin paying royalties for pre-1972 sound recordings. HR-1733 also would require satellite broadcasters to pay royalties at market rates (see 1504130056 and 1504160050). Future of Music also would want to discuss the need for authentication databases that can easily match sound recording copyrights and music work copyrights, Rae said. It’s not immediately clear what issues AAP would want to discuss during a potential meeting with House Judiciary since the group still needs to discuss with its members whether any of its initial legislative priorities need to be further articulated, Adler said.
There is some hope that the additional round of stakeholder meetings will help House Judiciary “narrow their focus on which issues they intend to consider through legislation,” said an industry lobbyist. It’s clear from the early introduction of HR-1733 and circulation of the draft Copyright Office for the Digital Economy Act that music licensing issues and Copyright Office (CO) modernization are the topics that have the most fully matured stakeholder interest, the lobbyist said.
Any focus on CO modernization would need to resolve questions about how Congress would give an independent office “the authority that most people would agree the register of copyrights needs over budgetary and operation matters in order to meet the CO’s needs going forward,” Adler said. Possible consideration of splitting off the CO is also occurring in the midst of the White House’s search for a replacement for outgoing Librarian of Congress James Billington, he said. House Judiciary also still needs to resolve whether it will consider separate bills to address individual copyright policy issues or address multiple issues via an omnibus bill, an industry lobbyist said.
House Judiciary hasn’t indicated how long the timetable for the new round of stakeholder meetings will last, though it appears that the committee is considering holding at least some of the meetings during Congress’ August recess, Adler said. The House’s decision to delay consideration of the Innovation Act (HR-9) until after the August recess gives House Judiciary a chance to return to copyright, and the absence of other official legislative business during the recess means August would “probably be a good time for them” to hold some of the stakeholder meetings, Adler said. House Judiciary didn’t comment on whether it has established a clear timetable for the meetings.