House Judiciary's California Copyright Roundtables 'Wide Open' on Possible Discussion Topics

The Santa Clara and UCLA roundtables each will have 19 panelists, with both panels drawing from a wide range of industries. The Santa Clara event will draw testimony from more top industry executives than the UCLA session, though the UCLA roundtable is expected to include Google Legal Director-Copyright Fred Von Lohmann. Executives set to testify at the Santa Clara roundtable include Pandora General Counsel Steve Bene, Pinterest Deputy General Counsel Tony Falzone, TiVo General Counsel Matt Zinn and Yahoo Vice President-IP Policy Laura Covington. The presence of multiple top industry stakeholders at the Santa Clara session is likely to make it a more revealing window into top companies’ wish list for House Judiciary’s ongoing Copyright Act review, said Content Creators Coalition Executive Director Jeffrey Boxer.

House Judiciary’s California roundtables will “continue the process of what [committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.] has promised to do, to go out into the country and hear from creators in their own areas,” House IP Subcommittee Vice Chairman Doug Collins, R-Ga., said in an interview. “I think we’re going to hear a continuation of the same themes we’ve heard before, but I also think we’re going to hear more about where there’s common ground on different areas of copyright that we can move forward on.” Collins is to attend the Santa Clara roundtable. Around 10 House Judiciary members were expected to attend both hearings, though a full list wasn’t confirmed at our deadline.

Collins said he expected stakeholders might discuss the Library of Congress’ recent grant of 10 exemptions to anti-circumvention rules in Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 1201 during the California roundtables, but wouldn’t speculate on how much emphasis stakeholders would place on those issues. Electronic Frontier Foundation Staff Attorney Kit Walsh is expected to urge a revamp of Section 1201 during the Santa Clara roundtable.

Stakeholders are “not allowed to set the table” for what topics will come up in the California roundtables, which as in the Nashville roundtable will involve questions posed by participating congressmen, said Boxer, who’s to testify at the UCLA hearing. “These sessions are going to be even more wide open” than Nashville, he said. “We have a ton of film and TV people on our panel. They’re not just going to be talking about music.” Boxer said his own testimony would focus on the music creator’s perspective, including emphasizing the importance of the Copyright Office’s music licensing study over other music policy reports like the Berklee College of Music’s Rethink Music report on music licensing transparency. Boxer said he’s concerned the CO music licensing study hasn’t “gotten any traction” in House Judiciary’s copyright review.

House Judiciary had provided little information to testifying stakeholders by Friday about what topics would be addressed during the roundtables, though Boxer said he anticipated any questions would likely be generalized and open-ended rather than focus on specific legislation or policy proposals. An industry lobbyist raised concerns about how effective the California roundtables would be without advance notice on specific policy topics and given the presence of 19 testifying stakeholders. “Listening tours with almost 20 people talking during a two-hour period mean there’s not a lot of listening going on,” the lobbyist said.

IP and entertainment lawyer Dina LaPolt, who will also testify at the UCLA roundtable, also noted limited instructions from House Judiciary staff. That lack of scheduled time for prepared statements from stakeholders may be beneficial to the process because it’s likely to prevent a “rehash of previous testimony,” LaPolt said. “This really seems like it’s going to involve people sitting around the table trying to work together,” she said. LaPolt will speak at the UCLA roundtable in her role as attorney adviser to the Songwriters of North America and as counsel to Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler. The roundtables are likely to be most effective at building “relationships amongst the people themselves” to push for legislation in the future, LaPolt said.

LaPolt said she will emphasize the need for all copyright stakeholders to “work together” to advance House Judiciary’s copyright review into the policymaking stage. “If people don’t come to the table with the mindset of dealmaking, we’re not going to get anything done,” she said. “Everybody already knows how these stakeholders feel. There’ve been comment papers, 100 witnesses” at House Judiciary copyright hearings since 2013. “We all know what the issues are,” LaPolt said. “Now we need to figure out how to work together, because technology needs music and music needs technology.”

Crunch Digital CEO Keith Bernstein, who’s previously met with legislators and other federal officials on licensing transparency issues (see 1508270056), told us he plans to attend the UCLA roundtable “to hear where things stand right now.” Bernstein said he will be listening for any mention by stakeholders about concerns with the lack of a songwriter’s audit right under Copyright Act Section 115 since “that’s one of the biggest holes” in that part of copyright law. “I’ve been pushing on this for quite a while,” Bernstein said.