Section 512 of Title 17: A Report of the Register of Copyrights

Post publish date: May 22, 2020

This report is the culmination of a 5-year study of section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In its report, the U.S. Copyright Office repeatedly notes that the balance Congress intended in section 512 is “aske” to the detriment of rights holders. The Office does not recommend any major revisions to the statute, but suggests “areas where Congress may wish to fine- tune section 512’s current operation in order to better balance the rights and responsibilities of OSPs and rightsholders, in alignment with its objectives when it passed the DMCA” In addition, the Office makes various recommendations outside the context of legislative amendments, including those related to education, voluntary measures, and standard technical measures, and even commits itself to rolling out certain educational tools and a website focused on tools and information regarding the DMCA.