Does the Copyright Office Belong in a Library? | Peer to Peer Review

"It has been a busy time for those of us who watch the doings of the Copyright Office. In addition to releasing a massive report on Orphan Works and Mass Digitization, about which I have written here, the Copyright Office (CO) is the subject of a piece of legislation introduced as a discussion draft on June 3. The bill, if it were officially introduced and ultimately enacted, would remove the CO from the Library of Congress (LC) and establish it as an independent agency of the federal government, under the Executive Branch. Then, while we were still considering the ramifications of this idea, came the announcement on June 10 of the pending retirement of Dr. James Billington, who has been the Librarian of Congress for the past 29 years. These events suggest long-term changes for the copyright and library communities, and it is worth taking a moment to consider, especially, the impact of the idea of making the Copyright Office an independent agency. The first thing that strikes me about the 'discussion draft' of the proposed law to establish the Copyright Office as an independent agency—called the Copyright Office for the Digital Economy (CODE) Act—is that it never says why it is needed. This is not unusual, but many bills have a section, often called 'Findings,' that outlines the reasons for a piece of legislation and provide justification that the bill is needed. Since the CODE Act is, so far, only a discussion draft, wouldn’t discussion be facilitated by some findings about what problem the bill actually intends to solve? The title implies that an independent (from the Library of Congress) Copyright Office would better serve the digital economy, but it never says why that is the case or what would be different. Perhaps we can get a clue, however, from some statements made about the bill when it was introduced ..."