Copyright Alliance Applauds Congressional Letter to ALI on Copyright Restatement Project

Washington, D.C. –  In response to the December 3 letter sent to American Law Institute (ALI) Director Richard Revesz by Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Representatives Ben Cline (R-VA), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Martha Roby (R-AL) and Harley Rouda (D-CA), Copyright Alliance CEO Keith Kupferschmid initiated the following statement:

“On December 3, a letter was sent to the American Law Institute’s Director Revesz by Senator Tillis and Representatives Cline, Deutch, Roby and Rouda, stating significant concerns regarding ALI’s Copyright Restatement Project. We at the Copyright Alliance echo the many concerns expressed, particularly the fact that federal copyright law which is governed by the 1976 Copyright Act is ill-suited to a Restatement because it is clearly articulated by Congress, and thank the Senator and Representatives for voicing their concerns.

“Today’s Copyright Act is the result of many years of discussions and compromises that have taken place in Congress and which are recorded in numerous Committee reports, testimonies and thousands of pages of Committee hearing transcripts. As stated clearly in the December 3 letter by the Senator and Representatives, ‘courts should rely upon statutory text and legislative history, not [on] Restatements that attempt to replace the statutory language and legislative history established by Congress with novel interpretation’. We could not agree more with this statement.

“The concerns voiced by the Senator and Representatives are not new or unique. Similar concerns have been vigorously expressed by the Register of Copyrights the principal advisor to Congress on national and international copyright matters as well as by the U.S. Copyright Office; the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; the American Bar Association’s IP Law Section; numerous academics and federal judges; and ALI advisors, liaisons and council members. If the ALI is to continue to move forward with this misguided project, it must address these and the many other significant and very real concerns that have been raised by the Senator and Representatives and many others who have spoken up.”

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ABOUT THE COPYRIGHT ALLIANCE

The Copyright Alliance is a non-profit, non-partisan public interest and educational organization representing the copyright interests of over 1.8 million individual creators and over 13,000 organizations in the United States, across the spectrum of copyright disciplines. The Copyright Alliance is dedicated to advocating policies that promote and preserve the value of copyright, and to protecting the rights of creators and innovators. For more information, please visit www.copyrightalliance.org.