Copyright Chaos, Trade Troubles, and Moral Messaging
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Here’s What You Need to Know
One month and one week into serving as the newest Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden has already done something no one else has done for the past 119 years – she fired the current Register of Copyrights, Maria Pallante.
- Pallante had been serving as the head of the U.S. Copyright office since January 2011, and had earned bipartisan Congressional support for efforts to modernize and strengthen the American copyright system.
- Some interest groups, however, have argued that under her leadership the CopyrightOffice had become too strong an advocate for rights holders. Suggestions have been made that she furthered entertainment business interests in the guise of copyright policy, while going beyond the Office’s core mandate to simply create accessible records of who owns artistic works.
- The original press release announced the move as a “new appointment” for Pallante as a “senior advisor for digital strategy,” but shortly after this announcement, Pallante’s resignation letter, in which she declared she would not be accepting the new position, was leaked.
- The dismissal led some commentators to suggest it was part of a move by Silicon Valley big tech firms working with the Obama administration to weaken American copyright law, and that removing Pallante sends a disturbing signal to creative industries who have supported her efforts to strengthen the laws. Even after her departure, this clash between content producers and content distributors and aggregators is likely to continue.
U.S. copyright law is integral to industries that generate over a trillion dollars in economic output, according to the International Intellectual Property Alliance. Dr. Hayden’s recent appointment and subsequent decision to take such a drastic measure to impact an important policy area just reaffirms that in Washington, people are policy.
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