Tag: Copyright Office

Librarian Critics Prove Need for Independent Copyright Office

Library of Congress Interior (1900)
Library of Congress Interior (1900)

On December 8th, the House Judiciary Committee announced its first policy proposal since beginning its review of the copyright law in the Summer of 2013. Among these early recommendations is that the Copyright Office should operate independent of the Library of Congress while remaining part of the Legislative Branch.

Not surprisingly, copyright critics have already complained about this proposal, including a number of university librarians who took umbrage at a November 28 letter to the Committee written by former Registers of Copyright Ralph Oman and Marybeth Peters.  The former Registers voiced their immediate displeasure at the tone and timing of the dismissal of Register Pallante on October 21 by the new Librarian of Congress Dr. Hayden; but they further expressed the view that this sudden and unprecedented firing signaled that it is finally time for the Copyright Office to operate independent of the Library.

Brandon Butler, J.D., Director of Information Policy at University of Virginia Library is the author of a letter signed by 41 other college and university librarians, which rebuts Oman and Peters and the proposal to move the Copyright Office out from under the auspices of the LOC. The letter itself stresses what may be described as a semantic and cultural kinship between copyright and librarians. For instance, in citing the goal “to promote progress” from the IP clause, Butler writes, “Libraries share this core purpose and promote cultural progress in numerous ways, from massive financial investments in the acquisition and licensing of copyrighted works to the curation and preservation of our cultural heritage.”

This is certainly true, and nobody should doubt the vital role of libraries in general or the treasure that is the Library of Congress in particular.  But many institutions, both public and private, promote cultural progress without anything to recommend them as the nation’s copyright authority.  Although Butler correctly notes that he and many other librarians have considerable expertise and, thus, provide many authors and users of works with guidance in copyright, this is hardly germane to the larger point.  Simply because universities have fine medical schools and hospitals, that doesn’t mean the Surgeon General’s office should operate within the Department of Education.

Yes, librarians perform a wide range of incredibly valuable tasks, including assisting their users with copyright law, as Butler describes. But the mere fact that he and others fail to acknowledge a distinction between these functions and those of the Copyright Office is proof in itself of the need for separation. Moreover, the Butler letter—albeit in lighter tones than other critics—does not scruple to jump on the bandwagon in accusing the Copyright Office of serving a narrow group of beneficiaries (i.e. corporate rights holders) of the copyright law.  This is an accusation without merit, and librarians should be more rigorous than to cite the undisciplined PR of activist groups.

That PublicKnowledge has made this assertion, based on its own cobbled-together “report” composed of innuendo and opinion, is no surprise; but the librarians of these institutions should be more forthright in their presentation of both the historic and contemporary functions of the Copyright Office.  Again, this lack of rigor is evidence that librarians can be as culturally biased as any other group and, therefore, ought to be represented at the table rather than preside over it.  Additionally, Butler’s letter does not acknowledge that indeed his colleagues have advocated that the Librarian of Congress take a more active policy-shaping role, which would effectively overturn the historic role of the Register under the current organizational structure.

As described in a previous post, the Librarian of Congress has never truly shaped copyright policy in the United States.  Oman and Peters call the organizational relationship between the LOC and the USCO an “accident of history,” and although Mr. Butler rejects this statement, he is simply incorrect.   The initial relationship was very much circumstantial, with precedents set during the Lincoln administration—a time when American courts were just figuring out what our copyright law actually means, while the Librarian was trying to find a place for all the manuscripts literally piling up on the Library floors.  This was a period marked more by extemporaneous troubleshooting rather than any kind of fleshed-out policy role for either the Library or the soon-to-be-established Copyright Office.

When the Copyright Office was created in 1897, it was predicated on a clerical relationship between registration and the growing collection; and copyright law itself had barely begun to deal, for instance, with the influence of machines on creative works.  As the law evolved in complexity through the 20th century, the Copyright Office likewise evolved as a multi-faceted agency that advises the courts, Congress, and the public on a dynamic range of issues specific to copyright law. Although the USCO has operated within the Library, the Librarian has historically deferred to the Register as the nation’s copyright authority. Hence the current proposal to make the Office independent is consistent with the role played by the Copyright Office for more than a century.

It is only fairly recently—with the introduction of digital technology—that more pronounced policy differences have become manifest between the Librarian and the Register—culminating with the surprise firing of Maria Pallante without so much as a heads-up to Congress.  Digital technology poses new challenges and opportunities for authors, rights holders, and libraries. Butler’s overemphasis of his and his colleagues’ expertise in copyright implies that the Librarian’s views on future copyright policy should become dominant for the first time in history, purely by virtue of a  traditional hierarchy that has no foundation in serving the Legislature, the courts, or the public.

In Butler’s letter, he writes, “Cultural institutions and the Copyright Office are natural allies.” He is absolutely right.  Allies meet on equal terms to discuss matters of cooperation and conflict. The librarians’ suggestion that there are no conflicts, or that such conflicts are best solved by one ally remaining subservient to other, is once again proof that the Judiciary Committee’s proposal for separation is as timely as it is soundly reasoned.

The Librarian of Congress is not the nation’s copyright authority.

Library of Congress Main Hall Washington DC, USA Photo by Marco Rubino Pond5
Library of Congress Main Hall Washington DC, USA
Photo by Marco Rubino Pond5

Just because the surgeon general serves at the pleasure of the president, that doesn’t mean we think the president is, therefore, the more qualified expert in medicine.  We want a president to have views on domestic healthcare in general but not to have opinions about actual medical practice.  That would be scary.

Yet, solely on the grounds that the U.S. Copyright Office operates within the Library of Congress, many of the usual copyright antagonists—Public Knowledge, EFF, et al—are lately promoting the idea that the Register of Copyrights is meant to follow the Librarian’s lead with regard to copyright policy.  This rhetoric has been buzzing a little louder since the nomination of Dr. Carla Hayden to the position of Librarian, who copyright skeptics view as an ideological ally, and who will be sworn in on September 14th. Although Dr. Hayden is exceptionally qualified for this position and, like all librarians, has her own views about the role of copyright, the office she is about to hold has at no time in history performed the duty of the nation’s authority on copyright law and policy.

For the first 107 years after the 1790 Copyright Act was passed, there was no U.S. Copyright Office at all. Copyright law itself was a patchwork of state and federal statutes; the courts were still parsing the meaning of the IP clause and looking to England for precedent; and authors’ works were registered by depositing copies with the federal courts in each state.  Meanwhile, the Library of Congress was exactly that—a department located in the front of the U.S. Capitol, staffed by fewer than ten people, and containing a book collection of some 80,000 volumes by the early 1860s.

In 1864, President Lincoln appointed Ainsworth Spofford to the position of Librarian of Congress, and it was Spofford who had the first grand ambitions for what the Library could become.  His vision included growing a vast collection of works for the nation and building a monumental facility where the collection would be housed.  In order to expand the collection, Spofford lobbied to have the copyright registration and deposit functions centralized at the Library, a procedural change that became policy with the second general revision of the copyright law in 1870.  Moving deposits to the Library worked to so great effect that by 1874, according to the LOC website, there were more than 70,000 books piled on the floors of the office.

So, the procedural change in deposits grew the collection rather quickly, but Spofford lacked the funding (and the room) to fully handle the workload he’d asked for. An 1893 New York Times story refers to an eight-week delay in issuing copyright certificates as well as a significant backlog of filings and correspondence pertaining to copyright.

New York Times - January 1893
New York Times – January 1893

Most of Spofford’s energy by then was focused on building the new facility itself, but when the doors opened in 1897, figures as notable as Melvil Dewey were already advocating a new role for the Library that went beyond merely amassing the largest repository in the world. Dewey’s view was that the Library of Congress should become “a center to which the libraries of the whole country can turn for inspiration, guidance, and practical help.”

So, in July of 1897, Spofford stepped into an assistant role, and the Library was reorganized as an institution that would fulfill this new mission of which Dr. Hayden will now be the new custodian and leader.  Later that same month, the Copyright Office was established as a separate entity within the Library; and a figure with specific expertise in copyright law, Thorvald Solberg, was appointed as the first Register.  Solberg was directly involved in drafting the 1909 Copyright Act and in directing American policy with regard to international copyright and trade. Every Register since Solberg has fulfilled this advisory role on copyright policy.

New York Times - August 1893
New York Times – August 1893

Spofford’s legacy of deposits to the Library via the copyright registration process has been maintained, and this keeps the public collection growing as intended. At the same time, the Librarian of Congress has often provided comments and views on various issues to the Copyright Office but historically defers to the Register with regard to specific policy recommendations.  Just like every other agency in the country, the USCO has grown along with copyright law’s increased complexity as  protectable works have scaled in volume, variety, and means of distribution.

In 1897, when this division of labor was first established, the medium of motion pictures was in its infancy, and the first Pianola (player piano) had just been invented two years prior. Copyright law was likewise still relatively primitive and about to collide with the mechanical age when the 1909 Act would truly begin to reflect to the modern world we know today.   In contrast to the 1890s, when the first registered “movie” at the LOC was 45 frames long, the 21st century USCO has a separate Visual Arts Division that operates under one of three Associate Registers.

The complexity of contemporary copyright touches multiple sectors of the American economy, representing more than 5.5 million jobs and an estimated 6.5% of GDP. As such, the Copyright Office is called upon to provide counsel and guidance to courts, Congress, other federal agencies, and the general public on a wide range of topics that implicate copyright law. Although the Register of Copyrights is organizationally subordinate to the Librarian, it would be a huge mistake to confuse this with a functional subordination.  The two offices perform very different and very necessary roles. The parties who are recently seeking to dismiss the Copyright Office as having neither authority nor expertise to perform its mandated duties are standing on historical quicksand.  Nobody should throw them a rope.

Ad Hominem

First of all, I hate Twitter.  Not so much as a forum for sharing links to stories or the occasional witticism.  But as a platform for “arguing” a point of view, let’s be honest, it’s total crap.  140 characters to express a thought is nothing but a means to see which idea is the most popular, not which is the most valuable or well-reasoned.  Being a cynic, I’ll go out on a limb and say that it’s rare those two columns are aligned, and even less so since the dawn of social media.

The shorthand of Twitter leads even thoughtful, intelligent people to say really stupid things.  It’s where someone will complain about being the target of an ad hominem attack while committing an ad hominem attack without any hint of self-awareness or even a clear indication that the tweeter knows what an ad hominem attack is in the first place.  So, let’s clear that up.

An ad hominem attack is one that seeks to disqualify the position of a speaker or author based solely on a criticism of his or her character.  This can be as nasty as saying something like “What does she know, she’s gay?” while debating, say, education policy.  But it can also be as benign as criticizing the speaker based on his or her affiliations with work or political party, etc.  This is a major dysfunction in our politics today—the assumption that valid positions never come from sources we’ve decided are bad or that everything the “good guys” say should be accepted without question.

It is not ad hominem to criticize aspects of the way in which a speaker or author presents his or her position while also rebutting the substance of that position.  For instance, if an author writes something with which you disagree and writes it in an arrogant, offensive, or sarcastic tone, it is fair game to criticize both the style and the substance because the style is part of what’s being communicated. I give you Mr. Trump, who is usually saying something false and almost always in a manner specifically designed to offend.  Technically, criticizing Trump’s hair in context to his candidacy is an ad hominem attack, but that may be about it.

Recently, Steven Tepp, CEO of Sentinel Worldwide posted an article on Medium accusing the organization Public Knowledge of exceeding the bounds of discourse by leveling ad hominem and factually selective attacks on the US Copyright Office.  In reference to various topics, Tepp states that PK has characterized the Copyright Office as either unqualified to comment or that it has overstepped its purview.  His observation of PK would be consistent with recent posts I’ve written noting, for instance, how the EFF seeks to dismiss or misrepresent the role of the Copyright Office with regard to the FCC “set-top box” proposals or its mission to have Section 1201 struck down as unconstitutional.  Just as a matter of basic logic, if any party is stating that the Copyright Office has no business weighing in on copyright issues, this ought to trigger at least a mildly skeptical response.  If an organization funded by the pharmaceutical industry stated that the FDA was out of bounds, would you take it on face value?

But how did Public Knowledge and Mike Masnick, and no doubt many of the usual suspects, respond to Tepp’s criticism on Twitter?  By calling him a former Copyright Office employee turned MPAA lobbyist.  In other words, an ad hominem attack.  No rebuttal to the substance of what Tepp said—which is limited to statements of fact about process and the law—just a dismissal out of hand because he’s on “the wrong side.”  It doesn’t really matter what the subject is, by the way, this is how we’re steadily destroying political discourse 140 characters at a time.

In this particular case, with just a couple of tweets, non-experts declare the experts dismissible (see climate change deniers) and also reinforce the bias that Hollywood is running Washington despite the mountain of evidence that the most influential corporation throughout the entire administration is Google.  Compare the number of Google lobbyist visits (128) to the White House to the number of MPAA visits (0) and then decide if Steven Tepp’s criticism of Public Knowledge is invalid because MPAA.  Unfortunately, on social media, this form of debate is sufficient for many people.

Over the last four years, my delving into specific issues related to copyright and the digital age has made me pay closer attention to how generalized many of my own biases have been as a liberal and a Democrat.  Nearly all of the legal experts I have met—and Tepp is one of them—have been extremely thoughtful and balanced in their views, and at least half of them are political conservatives. In fact, this recent post by a new young blogger Rebecca Cusey caught my attention because she’s making what she calls a “conservative” case for copyright, but what’s interesting is that part of her argument invokes labor rights, which is a traditional Democratic party plank.

Not surprisingly, whether the issue is copyright or trade or the economy or the environment or police reform, there are still people in the center, trying to work from a qualified understanding of facts and seeking the best ideas no matter whence they come. Social media rejects this by its very nature.  It feeds on and reinforces careless, associative logic that insists everyone remain in his camp and carry the standard of whatever label has been assigned.  It’s mostly ad hominem.  That’s why I hate Twitter.