Every day, people use the Internet to create and share content with others across the globe—and those users, and the Internet companies they rely on, each depend on a copyright framework some policymakers are looking to change. Specifically, a few members of Congress indicated they may be willing to re-open Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Unfortunately, the policy debate mostly revolves around large companies—both big tech companies and Internet platforms as well as large rightsholders in traditional content industries, like mainstream music or movies. But this area of the law is critical to all types of companies, Internet users, and creators. This post attempts to unpack some recent proposals, in an effort to help more stakeholders—especially tech startups—understand what is happening.

In letters this week to key congressional panels, Engine outlined startup-forward principles and priorities that we hope will guide Congress’s work on patent and copyright law this year. We wrote to the leaders of the Senate’s IP Subcommittee and the House Subcommittee on Courts, IP, and the Internet, encouraging each Subcommittee to promote and preserve balanced IP frameworks, emphasize patent quality, stress modernization, and advance diversity and inclusion.

In a letter to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Engine outlines principles we hope will guide the incoming administration’s selection of the next director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”). The full text of our letter is below.

The Digital Copyright Act of 2021 from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) proposes changes to copyright law that would be bad for startups that host user-generated content and the everyday Internet users and Internet-enabled creators they serve. As currently drafted, the bill would disrupt a statutory framework at the foundation of innovation, creative expression, and economic growth that would not have been possible twenty-five years ago.

We are disappointed by Congress’s decision to include controversial copyright legislation in the must-pass omnibus spending bill. As Engine and several smaller Internet platforms expressed earlier this month, “the CASE Act—as currently drafted—will be fundamentally unfair to and create substantial confusion for” everyday Internet users, small businesses, and Internet-enabled creators across the country. That bill would create an extra-judicial board where certain copyright holders could seek substantial damages—up to $30,000—over alleged copyright infringement.

Startup Internet platforms operating in the European Union may soon face complex and expensive rules to avoid liability when their users are accused of copyright infringement.