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November 25, 2025

Celebrating a Decade’s Worth of Copyright Alliance Thanksgivings

by Keith Kupferschmid

Almost two months ago, I celebrated my ten-year anniversary at the Copyright Alliance. I can’t believe it’s been just over ten years since I was offered this great opportunity to lead the Copyright Alliance and its members. I have loved this job from day one through day 3,700 and I’m tremendously thankful for the opportunity every single day. That’s in large part due to the fact that I have been blessed with a wonderful staff, terrific members to work for, and interesting issues to work on. As is the case with any job, there have been many ups and downs—thankfully many more ups. And there have been numerous obstacles and challenges. But none of them has been bigger than the tremendous David v. Goliath-like challenge we are presently facing in trying to get uber-wealthy AI companies to respect creativity and act responsibly by licensing the copyrighted works they train on.

During my tenure at the Copyright Alliance, every Thanksgiving season, I reflect back on the events of the past year and consider what I am most thankful for. But this year, I’m going to do things a little differently. Since it’s now been over a decade that I’ve been the Copyright Alliance CEO, it seems like a good time to look back at the past ten years to share the things I most appreciate during my tenure.

I am most thankful for the following:

  • At the top of my “things-to-be-thankful for” list is the knowledgeable, hardworking, dedicated, thoughtful, and passionate Copyright Alliance staff that I have worked with over the past ten years. This includes the policy team—Terry, Terrica, Sarah, Kevin, and Rachel—who for many years have been working diligently to advocate for policies that promote and preserve the value of copyright and protect the rights of creators and innovators; the comms/events team and operations managers—Claudia, Jodi, Anjelica, Jada, Courtney, Becca, and Elly—who have demonstrated tremendous dedication every day to the Copyright Alliance mission and kept the Copyright Alliance up and running on what many times seems like a shoe-string budget. I’d also like to thank our numerous legal fellows and interns for their hard work and assistance. Most of all, I’d like to thank Eileen Bramlet, our COO, who also recently celebrated ten years at the Copyright Alliance. I cannot express how grateful I have been to have her at my side these past ten years. Her support and sunny disposition set the tone for this place. I am so grateful to have worked with such a wonderful team of people who willingly put up with my crazy ideas, my bad jokes, and my seemingly constant requests at any and all hours of the day and night. All our successes are due to this amazing group that I have been extremely fortunate to have worked with over the years.
  • The millions of creators across the globe whose rights and interests the Copyright Alliance does our best to protect. These creators have long struggled against those who steal their creative works and fail to respect how challenging it is to make a living and career as a creator. That lack of respect and thievery has reached new heights lately as AI behemoths copy and use their works without payment or permission to train their AI models. Somehow these AI goliaths can pay for the chips, energy, and employees, but when it comes to paying for the actual material that their entire systems train on, they cry poverty, China, and national security. Despite this, and the numerous other challenges creators have endured over the past several years (including a pandemic that canceled their concerts and shows, film and television productions, book tours and speaking engagements, photography shoots, art exhibitions, and other events) they continue to work hard to create new copyrighted works for the world to enjoy. Looking back on my ten years at the Copyright Alliance, I am especially proud of the tens of thousands of creators across the country, as well as friends of the creative community, who sent letters and emails and phoned their Representatives and Senators and urged them to support the CASE Act and, more recently, sent letters to members of Congress and the White House on the impact of generative AI on copyright. The CASE Act, which has blossomed into the Copyright Claims Board (CCB), would not exist without their tremendous support and efforts.
  • The organization members of the Copyright Alliance who have been so wonderfully supportive of our mission and me over the past ten years. Like any organization, our members may not fully agree with one another all the time. But the Copyright Alliance is more like a family than a non-profit organization, and sometimes families disagree. But you know what families also do—they support one another, especially when it’s most important. At a time when the copyright community is facing its greatest challenge, all of our members are working together to fight back against the existential threat of generative AI that is trained on their hard work and creativities. The Copyright Alliance members understand how important it is that we all work together toward one goal—the importance of strong and effective copyright protection. I am tremendously thankful for their continued support, both of me and the Copyright Alliance itself.
  • The leadership and staff at the U.S. Copyright Office, for supporting copyright and creativity every day, for working to modernize the copyright registration system, and for promoting the importance of copyright to our culture, economy, and international trade. In particular, during my tenure at the Copyright Alliance, I have been fortunate to work with three stellar Registers of Copyrights—Maria Pallante, Karyn Temple and Shira Perlmutter; numerous talented General Counsels—Jacqueline Charleworth, Sy Damle, Regan Smith, and Suzie Wilson; and a long list of knowledgeable and hard working Associate Registers, including Maria Strong, Rob Kasunic, Miriam Lord, and Catie Zaller Rowland. During my tenure at the Copyright Alliance, they’ve endured two government shutdowns, the ouster of two Registers, the lack of modern and necessary tools for them to effectively and efficiently do their jobs, and countless other challenges. Yet, they still demonstrate their unflagging devotion to the purposes and goals of copyright on a daily basis.
  • The valued support from Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee leaders, Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Adam Schiff (D-CA); and members of the Subcommittee, Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Peter Welch (D-VT). The instrumental support we have received from members of the House Intellectual Property Subcommittee, especially Subcommittee leaders Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Daryl Issa (R-CA), Hank Johnson (D-GA), and Martha Roby (R-AL); and members of the Subcommittee, Representatives Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Tom Marino (R-PA), Doug Collins (R-GA), Jamie Raskin (D-MA), Ben Cline (R-VA), Judy Chu (D-CA), Ted Lieu (D-CA), Laurel Lee (R-FL), and Deborah Ross (D-NC). I’d also like to thank leaders and members of the House Administration Committee and Senate Rules Committee and their staffs for their support on Copyright Office modernization issues. And, while they were not on the Senate IP Subcommittee, I would also like to thank Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) and his staff for their unyielding support on AI IP issues and Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and John Kennedy (R-LA) and their tenacious staffs for their valuable support for the CASE Act. I would also like to notice Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN) for his support over the years as well as the long list of Congressmen and Congresswomen who supported the CASE Act and the Music Modernization Act, including those who are no longer holding public office.
  • The Copyright Alliance Legal, Creators, and Academic Advisory Boards, for their dedication and support of Copyright Alliance members by sharing their experience, advocacy, and advice, and for volunteering their time and energy to support copyright and the creative industry.
  • My predecessor Sandra Aistars for guiding me through those rough first few months as I transitioned from my prior position at the Software & Information Industry Association (now being deftly led by Chris Mohr), where I represented technology and information companies and intellectual property owners of all types for over sixteen years.
  • My Board of Directors, especially former and present Chairmen David Green and Greg Saphier, for their invaluable guidance on the many challenges and obstacles that I and the Copyright Alliance have faced over the years.
  • All those who have donated to the Copyright Alliance in the past or will donate on Giving Tuesday (this year and at other times throughout the year) so that the Copyright Alliance can continue to champion the rights of creators and their works through dedicated advocacy and copyright education. Your continued donations help to empower us to foster a world where creativity not only survives but thrives.
  • Television shows, books, music, magazines, photographs, movies, software, video games, art, newspapers, model codes, and so many other copyrighted works.
  • A copyright law that protects and incentivizes the creation and dissemination of these works so that people like you and I can enjoy them.

As is tradition, I also list some things that I’m not thankful for:

  • Pirates and piracy.
  • Those who value eyeballs (or ears) more than IP by taking others’ content without compensation and/or permission, or without paying the true value that a contribution demands.
  • Google and Meta for their long history of devaluing creators and creativity, and the next generation of technology behemoths, like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Suno, whose activities on generative AI demonstrate their intent to follow in their footsteps.
  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, the Chamber of Progress, Fight for the Future, Re:Create, the Authors Alliance, Engine, and other pawns of the big tech bros. who philosophically oppose copyright and anything that would help the creative community, and routinely do their best to spread falsehoods about copyright.
  • Music platforms which, despite their huge success, refuse to compensate music creators fairly for their hard work and creativity.
  • The ALI Copyright Restatement and those who drafted it for its significant inaccuracies, omissions, and mischaracterizations of copyright law.
  • The pandemic’s impact on copyright law. If it weren’t for the pandemic, at least one copyright case—Google v. Oracle—would have likely been decided very differently. As we know, when the pandemic struck, the U.S. Supreme Court, like many other courts, postponed its hearing schedule. As a result, oral arguments in Google v. Oracle were postponed and by the time the case was heard and decided, Justice Ginsburg—long a stalwart on copyright issues—had passed away. The decision in this case would most certainly have been different if the oral arguments were able to proceed as initially scheduled so that Justice Ginsburg could provide input into the decision.
  • The lasting impact that the pandemic and the Los Angeles wildfires have had on the creative community. Like many other professions, individuals and businesses in the creative industries were hit hard by the pandemic and the LA wildfires. Most creators were struggling to make ends meet long before these tragedies. But the financial challenges that these events posed made things exponentially worse, wreaking havoc on the careers and precarious finances of the members of America’s creative community.

As I look forward, I am confident that the Copyright Alliance will continue to work diligently to ensure that the rights of all creators and copyright owners across the country are respected. In particular, we will continue to urge policymakers and the courts to ensure that AI companies act responsibly, ethically, and respectfully when it comes to their development and use of copyrighted works, and that those who steal from creators and copyright owners are held accountable for their illicit acts.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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