'Tell Us About That': Schiff Asks Copyright Office Head About Copyright Officers Adjudicating Claims

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[00:00:00]Um, Register, I wanted to just come back to the Copyright Claims Board.

[00:00:04]Um, currently you have three Copyright Claims Officers.

[00:00:09]Um, what is the demand like? Uh, one of the proposals I know is to allow a single officer to adjudicate these claims. Uh, tell us about that, but um, if we were going to meet either the demand today or the the projected demand, should we empower a lot more officers to handle these cases?

[00:00:31]>> So far we don't see the need. So far the growth has been steady, but not overwhelming. And if we make some of the improvements we're talking about, we think uh, so far we can handle it. If we get to a point where we can't, then we would of course come back to you. Um, I think uh, the the logic behind empowering a single uh, officer to handle a case is that first of all it's done that way in other small claims courts, and of course in the federal courts. Uh, there's still could be reconsideration by the full panel, but some of that's another way to speed up the process because some of the delay, some of the time it takes to come out with a determination is the three officers having to consult with each other and agree on how they want to handle the matter.

[00:01:17]>> Um, the the I guess the average period of time is still fairly lengthy, 500 or more days, uh, short compared to going to federal court, but um, I know one of the proposals involves uh, waving the mandatory 60-day opt-out period. Can you explain that and and what the trade-off is there?

[00:01:39]>> Uh, there the idea would be uh, yes, people have 60 days to opt out, but if if the respondent has decided they do want to participate and if and more than half of them so far do want to do seem to want to participate, uh, then it shouldn't be required to keep waiting, that they could affirmatively say, I'm happy to participate and then the opt-out period would would end.

[00:02:01]>> Got you.

[00:02:01]>> We could save, you know, 6 weeks or something that way.

[00:02:04]>> Uh, any other reforms you want to uh elaborate on now?

[00:02:08]>> Um, having uh right now there's three opportunities to amend a claim uh before a final determination whether it's compliant or not and can proceed.

[00:02:19]Uh, it would be helpful to allow the copyright claims officers to make a decision at an earlier stage that a claim is just fatally defective. I mean, for example, they get claims for patent infringement. They get claims for against uh foreign citizens that they uh don't have jurisdiction to to entertain.

[00:02:40]So, things like that they could we could maybe shorten the uh compliance review period.

[00:02:45]>> So, I I do want to take issue with um comments by some of my colleagues.

[00:02:50]First of all, California is clearly the leader in film.

[00:02:54]>> [laughter] >> Um, it's really not even arguable. Uh, and I would say we're the leader in music.

[00:03:01]Which Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. By number of artists, by volume, by greatness and creativity, it's all the Golden State.

[00:03:11]And yeah, there's a lot of jealousy. I get that. Um, but but the good news is we're willing to share. We're willing to share.

[00:03:18]Uh, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

[00:03:20]>> Thank you, Senator Schiff. Senator Coons, anything else? Um, Register Perlmutter, it's uh been a pleasure to have you here today and I thank you for your testimony and we know a lot of of uh preparation goes into