Hi folks,

As has been mentioned on this list before, the US Librarian of Congress is soliciting input to help her select the next Register of Copyrights[1]. The deadline to submit comments[2] is January 31. I’m working on preparing comments for the Wikimedia Foundation, and I’m interested to hear from you about the themes you think are important to touch on.

The Register of Copyrights is in charge of the Copyright Office[3] in the US. In addition to maintaining (and hopefully improving) the copyright registration system, the Copyright Office plays an important role in advising Congress on copyright-related matters. They gather information about copyright law and the functioning of the copyright system and they analyze and interpret that information for Congress. As such, they can have significant influence on the perspectives and considerations that form the basis of proposed changes to US copyright law.

I currently plan to emphasize that the Register should understand the full scope of the copyright landscape and who the stakeholders are and will be. Discussions of copyright law often involve simplified narratives of legacy rightsholders like movie studios versus online platforms like YouTube. The Register must see beyond those narratives. They need to recognize the creativity and expression that online platforms for individuals and other small creators. They also need to understand that copyright exists ultimately to benefit the public—to encourage people to create and share works in order for the rest of society to benefit from those works (including by sharing, building on, and remixing them).

What other themes do you think are important to Wikimedia? What should the Librarian of Congress be thinking about when looking for the next Register of Copyrights? There are a lot of potential topics to discuss, so we won’t be able to mention all of them, but your input will help us decide what to focus on. If you’re interested, I encourage you to submit your own comments as well.

- Charles

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_of_Copyrights

[2] https://www.research.net/r/RegisterOfCopyrights