IT Modernization Discussion, Limited Copyright Focus Anticipated at LOC Nominee Hearing
The Senate Rules Committee’s confirmation hearing Wednesday on Librarian of Congress nominee Carla Hayden will likely include at least a partial focus on issues of interest to the copyright community, but controversial topics like Copyright Office modernization probably won’t be a factor, copyright stakeholders said in interviews. Hayden was considered largely a blank slate on copyright policy issues, but the copyright community lauded Hayden’s work as CEO of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library system to update that system's technologies (see 1602240054 and 1603080063). The Senate Rules hearing is set to begin at 2:15 p.m. in 301 Russell.
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Copyright Alliance CEO Keith Kupferschmid said he anticipates copyright issues will play only a “small part” in the confirmation hearing. Although Senate Rules is certainly interested in the LOC’s role on copyright issues, the committee will likely prioritize overall LOC operations, Kupferschmid said. It’s likely Hayden “will probably try not to get into any issues of substantive copyright policy like CO modernization that may be controversial,” either on the advice of White House officials or based on her own judgment, said Association of American Publishers Vice President-Legal and Governmental Affairs Allan Adler. Some members of Senate Rules may attempt to inject controversial copyright issues into the hearing, but the White House typically advises its nominees are to “deflect controversial issues to the extent they can,” Adler said.
“I’d be surprised if copyright issues didn’t come up to some degree” during the confirmation hearing, said Sandra Aistars, George Mason University School of Law Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property director-copyright research and policy. The LOC-CO relationship has become a central part of the copyright policy debate, especially as stakeholders have pushed the House Judiciary Committee to act on CO modernization as part of the committee’s ongoing Copyright Act review, she said. Aistars and 13 other IP law professors jointly told Senate Rules that Hayden’s nomination “offers an opportunity to make further progress on the important work of updating and improving the status and resources” of the CO by granting the CO more autonomy.
“The time is ripe to ensure that the Copyright Office has the accountability and authority to best serve all of its stakeholders -- most of all the American public,” the professors said in a letter to Senate Rules leaders. “We believe the current structure is inefficient and incompatible with good government administration. It saddles the Librarian with responsibilities outside the core competencies for which the role of Librarian is established and vetted. Moreover, it muddles the authority and accountability of the [register of copyrights], who is fully vetted for administering the Copyright Act.”
If copyright does become a hearing focus, it’s most likely to involve questions about how much autonomy Hayden plans to give to the register of copyrights for managing CO operations, a copyright lobbyist told us. Former Librarian of Congress James Billington generally had a “hands-off policy” for getting involved in CO matters, so stakeholders will be interested in whether Hayden will take a similar approach, the lobbyist said. Both the MPAA and RIAA urged Hayden not to micromanage the CO.
Several stakeholders told us they will be interested in how Hayden’s library tech revamp experience at Pratt might inform her approach to the LOC’s ongoing IT modernization work. The entirety of LOC “has been hit hard” by criticism of its IT program since release of a critical GAO report last year (see 1503310046), so Hayden’s thoughts on moving the library’s IT modernization forward will be very important, a copyright lobbyist told us. The copyright community also will be interested in whether Hayden is willing to back the CO’s IT modernization plan (see 1602290071), which calls for the office to create a separate IT system, the lobbyist said. There’s a “tremendous groundswell” in support of IT modernization and “we’d want to understand whether [Hayden] is supportive” of the CO’s IT modernization plan, Kupferschmid said. Unlike the debate over CO autonomy, IT modernization is an area where the copyright community has reached a “general consensus that something needs to be done,” Adler said.