Joe Keeley, chief counsel of the Subcommittee on Courts, IP
and the Internet of the House Judiciary Committee, noted that
larger legislation like the AIA managed to make its way through
Congress. These observations, he said, make an omnibus bill for
copyright reform look appealing. But with the Obama
administration in its final days, "my guess is that not much is
going to happen until the new administration, whatever that may
be," said Nancy Mertzel, a partner with Herrick Feinstein.
The panelists identified three key areas of functionality
that are in most dire need of improvement within the Copyright
Office: registration and renewals; recordation; and the
development of a modern, searchable database. One potential
issue to the first is a relationship between the Library of
Congress – of which the Copyright Office is a part
– and the Copyright Office itself.
According to the current statute, a hard copy deposit is
required with the registration of a copyright. The Library of
Congress has reaped the benefit of these deposits. "Certainly,
we need to grow our nation's Library," said Mertzel, "but on
the other hand, we need to improve our copyright registration
process." Mertzel sees no reason that a hard copy should still
be necessary to a registration, which would be cheaper and more
efficiently done electronically, and falls in line with the
Copyright Office's Provisional IT Modernization Plan.
In addition to the possibility of splitting the Copyright
Office from its housing in the Library of Congress, Mertzel
noted the handling of small claims issues also as an area of
reform. Questions remain about the model of and scope of cases
that would be eligible to be handled in a potential small
claims court. The current pending legislation takes an
"opt-out" approach, and refers only to exclusive rights under
Section 106(b).
All three panelists agreed that the now-ex Register of
Copyrights Maria Pallante (she left the role last Friday) had
and would continue to "have an important role." June Besek, a
professor at Columbia University Law School, called Pallante
dynamic and forward thinking. Besek said: "People on both sides
didn't like her decisions, and that's the only true measure of
being balanced."
Keeley hinted that Pallante's sudden departure from the
Copyright Office might be cause to temper expectations for
reform. "Quite frankly, recent events, just within the last
week or two, make it clear that perhaps it's best to just focus
on small claims and a modernized Copyright Office," he said. An
attendee pointed out that the panelist had only spoken about
what these smaller pieces of reform might entail, but not "what
it's going to take to push this through Congress."
Searching for an analogy, Keeley replied with a description
of a house: its residents can see that it's falling into
disrepair, but resist doing anything about it until "it's so
bad you either have to rebuild it or move out."