Urgent! Time to Take Action to Protect your Copyright (again)!
Once again, your copyright is under threat. You must respond by January 31 to a short survey created by the Librarian of Congress asking what duties the new Register of Copyright’s primary skills and duties should be. Keep reading to discover why this is not just an innocent request.
We published the Illustrators Partnership email blast below with a proper explanation of the need to reply to this survey. You can read the email blast online, as well, at:
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=1102063090742&ca=aca1a744-6554-4dfe-bf4f-bdf62c613378
Please complete the survey and forward/share this to all interested parties!
From the Illustrators Partnership
Librarian of Congress Seeks Input on Register of Copyrights
January 16, 2017
Sorry folks, another copyright deadline looms and those of us who care about protecting our work have until January 31 to respond to the survey posted here by Dr. Carla Hayden, the new Librarian of Congress.
The last we heard from Dr. Hayden, she had just unceremoniously sacked Maria Pallante, the Register of Copyrights. Now she “invites the public to provide input” to her on “the knowledge, skills and abilities” required for Pallante’s replacement.
Dr. Hayden is commonly understood to believe that copyrighted work should be “as widely accessible as possible.” As Peggy McGlone writes in The Washington Post:
“[P]ersonnel changes are not uncommon when a new leader comes in, [but] many in the creative industries interpret Hayden’s move – made six weeks after she took office – as proof of her anti-copyright bias. They say Hayden’s library background aligns her with Google, which owns YouTube, the source of many claims of copyright infringement.”
“[Hayden] has a long track record of being an activist librarian who is anti-copyright and a librarian who worked at places funded by Google,” says Don Henley of The Eagles:
“There’s a mind-set that the digital giants have fostered that everything on the Internet should be free…When they say they want free and open access, that’s code for ‘We want free content..'”
As we’ve seen in the past, the anti-copyright lobby has the resources to gin up an “astroturf” response to such “surveys.” They can then use that “response” to go to Congress to present their case for free content as “the will of the people.”
To counter this lobbying tactic, creators must respond in force with a call to retain the full protections of copyright as articulated in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution.
Please take the time to go to the Library of Congress survey website and respond to Dr. Hayden’s three questions.
1. What are the knowledge, skills, and abilities you believe are the most important for the Register of Copyrights?
2. What should be the top three priorities for the Register of Copyrights?
3. Are there other factors that should be considered?
We will provide some sample answers tomorrow.
Several concerned groups, also, put out the call. Read their opinion, along with their suggested answers, at the following:
Jim Pickerell of Selling Stock:
http://www.selling-stock.com/Article/protect-your-copyright-respond-to-survey
The Copyright Alliance:
http://files.constantcontact.com/d2e8d4e5501/3093dd34-423b-4286-99ad-c2eb2623d131.pdf