Congress designed copyright law to promote innovation by rewarding creators with exclusive rights. Unfortunately, major rightsholders like record labels and book publishers have pushed to expand these rights so dramatically in the digital space that they jeopardize the very creators and consumers the law was meant to protect \u2013 even stifling lawful activities like remixing content or repairing devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Copyright law has been weaponized against activists, researchers, and creators. Corporate rightsholders and bad actors alike have used powerful tools, such as the takedown notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to force competitors offline and remove criticism from the internet. These same rightsholders are now fighting for the ability to block access to websites<\/a> without any meaningful guardrails against abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The DMCA also curtails the rights of consumers to do ordinary, everyday activities with the media they own. Modern copyright law limits our ability to share, resell, and preserve the things we buy. We do not own copies \u2013 we merely license them. This hurts libraries and other public institutions by preventing them from purchasing, sharing, or preserving creative works for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our devices are also digital. This means that we must break digital locks to repair, and sometimes even fully use, our devices. To do that lawfully, the Copyright Office has to grant an exemption, which only lasts three years. The DMCA doesn\u2019t help creators or consumers adapt to the digital world; it makes everything worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Public Knowledge works to create a copyright system that recognizes the role that technology plays in our everyday lives. We support the public\u2019s right to remix content into new expressions or create or share lawful content online. We advocate for policies that protect innovation without constraining fair use. We urge Congress to prevent rightsolders from blocking websites and to fix the DMCA so that consumers can own, lend, or repair their devices.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n View our resource page to support AI policies that help everyone benefit<\/a> from the enormous potential of AI tools.<\/p>\n\n\n