RIAA, NMPA, ARA Support SMART Copyright Act

• On Friday, Senate Judiciary Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Ranking Member Thom Tillis (R-NC) introduced bipartisan legislation encouraging the development and adoption of effective, widely available tools to combat online piracy. The SMART Copyright Act of 2022 authorizes the Librarian of Congress to conduct transparent, public proceedings to identify and designate already widely used “technical measures” and creates incentives for their further use while assuring reasonable costs and implementation.

Mitch Glazier, Chairman & CEO of the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) and David Israelite, Pres. & CEO of the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) released the following statements in support of this bipartisan measure — Glazier (left) said, “By encouraging cooperation between platforms and rightsholders, the SMART Copyright Act will incentivize the development and adoption of effective tools to address online piracy while giving platforms clarity. This thoughtful proposal builds off nearly a quarter century of real-world experience under the DMCA and promises a big step toward balancing the interests of creators and tech companies in today’s integrated commercial marketplace. Congress intended that creators and platforms work together to protect copyright and consumers and this proposal achieves that goal. We applaud Senators Leahy and Tillis for once again doing the work to forge creative, bipartisan solutions that move copyright law forward and strengthen the digital creative ecosystem for everyone.”

Israelite (left) remarked, “The DMCA for years has left songwriters and music publishers with few avenues to protect their work online. We applaud Senators Leahy and Tillis for their leadership to strengthen technical measures to hold giant tech platforms more accountable. This is a great first step towards fighting online piracy which continues to be a major threat to the livelihood of our creative community.”

• The Artist Rights Alliance (ARA) also applauded the introduction of The SMART Copyright Act of 2022, noting that “This bi-partisan legislation is a huge step forward towards these goals — making it easier for artists to control their music online and holding tech companies accountable for unlicensed work on their platforms.”

Last month, ARA submitted comments to the Copyright Office in support of standard technical measures, writing, “Broad adoption and implementation of technical measures that identify and protect music would help artists and songwriters enormously. It would let them focus on creating new music and lessen the need to monitor for infringements of their existing work. It would also likely increase the number of artists, musicians and songwriters that can make a living from their music. And it would send a message that digital platforms are partners in a healthy music economy, not zero-sum game competitors focused solely on their own bottom lines.”