Tech Companies, Songwriters Compete Over Copyright Reform

In-house counsel for eBay Inc., Google Inc. and the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA; nmpa.org) agreed last month that the U.S. copyright system needs improvement, but they offered different views about how to approach reform.

Speaking at The Federalist Society's annual lawyers' convention in Washington, Usman Ahmed of eBay, Katherine Oyama of Google and Danielle Aguirre of the NMPA didn't offer Congress a clear path to better copyright safeguards as lawmakers study reform proposals.

“Everyone agrees that the system right now, particularly in the area of music copyright, is broken and can be fixed,” said Aguirre, who serves as the music publishers' association senior vice president of business and legal affairs.

For Aguirre, fixing the copyright system means helping content owners in their efforts to enforce their rights. Songwriters, she said, face challenges in bringing infringement lawsuits under the current system.

Oyama, senior copyright policy counsel to Google, which owns YouTube and invests in technology startups, had a different view on copyright litigation. The threat of an infringement lawsuit can be “quite chilling and damaging” to tech startups looking to develop new products, she said.

“Of course, we want to have strong rights and protections for rights holders,” Oyama said. “But there may be ' places in the law ' where these legal tools are being used to threaten new startups or new businesses.”

Ahmed, policy counsel at eBay, said policymakers have difficult decisions to make on copyright reform.

“Obviously we want to incentivize copyright owners to create and create new works,” he said. “But we also want to have a free market.”

' Andrew Ramonas, Corporate Counsel

In-house counsel for eBay Inc., Google Inc. and the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA; nmpa.org) agreed last month that the U.S. copyright system needs improvement, but they offered different views about how to approach reform.

Speaking at The Federalist Society's annual lawyers' convention in Washington, Usman Ahmed of eBay, Katherine Oyama of Google and Danielle Aguirre of the NMPA didn't offer Congress a clear path to better copyright safeguards as lawmakers study reform proposals.

“Everyone agrees that the system right now, particularly in the area of music copyright, is broken and can be fixed,” said Aguirre, who serves as the music publishers' association senior vice president of business and legal affairs.

For Aguirre, fixing the copyright system means helping content owners in their efforts to enforce their rights. Songwriters, she said, face challenges in bringing infringement lawsuits under the current system.

Oyama, senior copyright policy counsel to Google, which owns YouTube and invests in technology startups, had a different view on copyright litigation. The threat of an infringement lawsuit can be “quite chilling and damaging” to tech startups looking to develop new products, she said.

“Of course, we want to have strong rights and protections for rights holders,” Oyama said. “But there may be ' places in the law ' where these legal tools are being used to threaten new startups or new businesses.”

Ahmed, policy counsel at eBay, said policymakers have difficult decisions to make on copyright reform.

“Obviously we want to incentivize copyright owners to create and create new works,” he said. “But we also want to have a free market.”

' Andrew Ramonas, Corporate Counsel