On the Road to a Modern Copyright System

• Author: Joshua L. Simmons
• Position: Joshua L. Simmons is an intellectual property partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in New York, New York. He focuses his practice on intellectual property litigation and counseling, as well as regulatory and legislative policy. He can be reached at joshua.simmons@kirkland.com.
• Pages: 7-13

Published in Landslide® magazine, Volume 11, Number 4, a publication of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law (ABA-IPL), ©2019 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.

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he roar of support for modernizing the Copyright Ofce is

deafening.1 Yet, despite those cheers, stakeholders debate the

placement of the Ofce and the role of its head, the Register

of Copyrights, in the copyright system. This article presents a

narrative of the evolution of the copyright system from 1783

to the early days of the Copyright Ofce, considering along

the way themes such as the requirements for registration, the

use of the copyright system to build a national library, and

the role of the Register in copyright policy. It also addresses

whether the Copyright Ofce is required to be a depart-

ment of the Library of Congress and whether the Register of

Copyrights can be a primary exponent of copyright policy.

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