November 2012 Public Hearings:

The Copyright Office will hold public hearings on small copyright claim issues in New York City on November 15-16, 2012 and Los Angeles on November 26-27, 2012. The Office is holding these discussions to learn more about the topics listed in its August 23, 2012 Notice of Inquiry and the comments submitted in response to that Notice, as well as the comments in response to the initial October 27, 2011 Notice of Inquiry.

The New York City hearings will be held at the Jerome Greene Annex of Columbia Law School, 410 West 117th Street, New York, New York 10027. The November 15 hearing will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and the November 16 hearing will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The Los Angeles hearings will be held in Room 1314 of the UCLA School of Law, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90095.  The November 26 hearing will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and the November 27 hearing will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The schedule for the hearings, which includes the dates and times for specific topics, is set forth below. As shown in the schedule, the hearings have been divided into seven distinct panels (to be repeated in the two venues) that cover the specific topics listed in the August 23, 2012 Notice of Inquiry. The deadline to request participation in the New York City hearing has passed. If you are interested in participating in one or more of the Los Angeles hearing panels, please complete and submit the participation interest form located at the top left-hand corner of this page no later than November 9, 2012.

Due to space constraints, the Office cannot guarantee that it will be able to accommodate every request. To maximize the number of viewpoints presented, the Office will accept only one representative per entity as a participant on a particular panel (but an entity may request to have different representatives on different panels). The Office is aware that some participants may wish to attend both the New York City and Los Angeles hearings. The Office will consider such requests in light of the space available and the goal of maximizing the perspectives represented during the hearing process.

The Office will also provide members of the public with the opportunity to observe the hearings. Note, however, that space is limited due to the size of the hearing rooms. The Office will admit observers on a first come, first serve basis.  To allow for a diverse audience, we ask that entities limit any observers to one per panel. 

The Office is making arrangements to transcribe the proceedings and will post the transcripts on the Office website.

Panels and hearing schedule

The New York and Los Angeles public hearings will each be divided into seven panels. Each panel will focus on a set of topics, all of which are set forth in the August 23, 2012 Notice of Inquiry. Below is the schedule and information as to which topics will be discussed at particular panels. The numbers and topics listed beneath each panel correspond to the numbered topics in the August 23, 2012 Notice of Inquiry.

Panels:

Panel I: Forum, jurisdiction, and decisionmakers

During this panel, we will discuss some or all of the following topics:

1. Nature of tribunal/process
2. Voluntary versus mandatory participation
6. Location of tribunal(s)
7. Qualifications and selection of adjudicators
28. State court alternatives

Panel II: Subject matter, claims, and defenses

During this panel, we will discuss some or all of the following topics:

8. Eligible works
9. Permissible claims
10. Permissible claim amount
11. Permissible defenses and counterclaims
25. Group claims

Panel III: Practice and procedure

During this panel, we will discuss some or all of the following topics:

12. Registration
13. Filing fees
14. Initiation of proceeding
15. Representation
16. Conduct of proceeding
17. Discovery, motion practice and evidence
21. Record of proceedings
26. Frivolous claims

Panel IV: Litigation alternatives

During this panel, we will discuss some or all of the following topics:

3. Arbitration
4. Mediation
5. Settlement

Panel V: Relief and appeals

During this panel, we will discuss some or all of the following topics:

18. Damages
19. Equitable relief
20. Attorneys' fees and costs
22. Effect of adjudication
23. Enforceability of judgment
24. Review / appeals

Panel VI: Constitutional issues

During this panel, we will discuss some or all of the topics relating to constitutional issues:

27. Constitutional issues (a)-(d)

Panel VII: Moving forward

During this panel, we will discuss some or all of the following topics:

29. Empirical data (a)-(d)
30. Funding considerations
31. Evaluation of small claims systems
32. Other issues

Schedule:

Background:

The Copyright Act protects a wide variety of works of authorship, from individual articles or photographs that may not have a high commercial value to motion pictures worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the marketplace. The copyright owners of all of these works can use copyright law to pursue certain unauthorized uses. Not all of these copyright owners, however, have the same resources to bring a federal lawsuit, which can require substantial time, money, and effort. Moreover, while a copyright owner may want to stop an infringement that caused a relatively small amount of economic damage, that owner may be dissuaded from filing a lawsuit because a potentially small award may not justify the potentially large expense of litigation. While the Act offers the possibility of statutory damages and attorney fees, these benefits are not available in all cases and parties cannot recover them until after the copyright owner has engaged in a potentially long court battle that requires up front costs.

The Copyright Office has been asked by Congress to study the obstacles facing small copyright claims disputes, as well as possible alternatives. Specifically, the Office is to undertake a study to: (1) assess the extent to which authors and other copyright owners are effectively prevented from seeking relief from infringements due to constraints in the current system; and (2) furnish specific recommendations, as appropriate, for changes in administrative, regulatory and statutory authority that will improve the adjudication of small copyright claims and thereby enable all copyright owners to more fully realize the promise of exclusive rights enshrined in our Constitution. The initial notice of inquiry seeks comment on how copyright owners have handled small copyright claims and the obstacles they have encountered, as well as potential alternatives to the current legal system that could better accommodate such claims.