EFF Faults AAP, Music Industry for Calls for Strong IP Protections Under Trump

The Electronic Frontier Foundation criticized the Association of American Publishers and major music industry interests for recent letters urging President-elect Donald Trump to strongly enforce IP rights and to push for changes to copyright law that appear to favor rightsholders. RIAA and other top music industry entities asked Trump last week to seek “strong protections” to protect IP rights, saying top tech sector firms “should follow others' example to effectively stop theft and assure fair payment.” AAP asked Trump last week to push Congress to make fixes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (see 1612130023 and 1612150033). EFF believes AAP and the music companies were pushing for a revamp of DMCA Section 512's safe harbor provisions, which “is a bad idea for everyone, including musicians,” said Policy Fellow Kerry Sheehan in a Tuesday blog post. “The music industry has benefited enormously from the Internet’s growth. Not only are there more opportunities for musicians to share their music with a global audience, but the industry itself is profiting handsomely.” AAP “also implies it wants even stricter enforcement against device manufacturers -- presumably through laws like Section 1201 that prohibit users from getting around digital locks on copyrighted content,” Sheehan said. “But locking down users’ devices, as with Digital Rights Management, is a massively unpopular strategy that impairs users’ ability to freely express themselves, interferes with access to books in accessible formats, hinders competition, and takes away users’ freedom to tinker with their own devices.” It appears “Big Content will never stop looking for more government support for their traditional business model, no matter what the cost to the Internet -- and they are never satisfied,” Sheehan said. “We urge the incoming administration to resist industry demands for more copyright regulation that, if history is any guide, will be both expensive and ineffective.”