Biden Nominates Legacy Entertainment Industry Copyright Enforcer To Be New IP Czar

I have to admit that I’d lost track of the whole White House IP Czar position. Officially, the “Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator” or IPEC, the job was created by the “Pro-IP Act” in 2008, and we warned that the whole thing was an attempt to turn the White House into Hollywood’s private copyright police force. The first IPEC didn’t come until after President Obama was elected, and while he was in office, there were two IPECs who served under him, with somewhat mixed results. The first one, got off to a rocky start, but was willing to listen to non-maximalist opinions, and eventually produced some more balanced reports on “IP enforcement.”

His second czar kicked off his job with a scary speech, misusing a bunch of stats to imply that “intellectual property laws” were directly responsible for anything “protected by” those laws.

But… after that… not much happened? I have no idea if Trump even had an IPEC. And, apparently it wasn’t a huge priority for Biden either. In 2022 the required report from IPEC was released, but it’s from “the office of the IPEC” and as far as I can tell, there was no human being who was actually the IPEC at that time. Even as some copyright-maximalist lobbyists would publicly whine about how Biden needed to nominate someone for the job, he’s only just done so now. Not surprisingly, but disappointingly, he’s pulled someone directly out of Hollywood, continuing the unfortunate revolving door between the legacy entertainment industries and the US government when it comes to roles around copyright policy.

Remember, copyright law, under the Constitution, is required to benefit the public. The monopoly rights grants under copyright are only a means to benefiting the public, not the ends themselves. Tragically, too many in Hollywood believe that the copyrights and the gatekeepers who control them are what’s important and should be the main beneficiaries. They often care little about whether or not they benefit the pubic. This does not mean that anyone from Hollywood will automatically support copyright maximalism — I’ve met enough people from those companies with a more open mind — but it certainly should lead to some amount of skepticism.

The bio of the person Biden has chosen at least does not suggest someone who is willing to recognize and support the important roles of fair use and the public domain in enabling creativity and innovation:

Deborah Robinson is an attorney with extensive experience protecting intellectual property rights on a global scale. Her career includes leadership roles as a corporate attorney and in public service as a prosecutor. As head of intellectual property enforcement at Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS), Robinson developed and implemented anti-piracy protocols to protect music, television, digital, and consumer-products properties. She built the global content protection group, amassed evidence for criminal prosecutions and directed civil litigation matters. She also coordinated regularly with social media and app platforms to create specialized enforcement workflows and forged alliances among several trade associations and industry coalitions. 

Prior to joining Paramount Global, Robinson spent five years protecting music creators’ rights at the Recording Industry Association of America and seven years as an Assistant District Attorney for the city of Philadelphia.

This is not the bio of someone who is out there trying to protect the rights of the public, generally speaking. It’s someone who is protecting the profits of corporations against actual artists and the public.

But, who knows, perhaps she will surprise us. But I’m not holding my breath.