Political Quotes

“I include in the Record a letter to the United States Trade Representative. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, September 17, 2019. Hon. Robert E. Lighthizer, U.S. Trade Representative, Washington, DC. Dear Ambassador Lighthizer: We write to express our concern regarding the inclusion of Article 20.89 in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). This provision, entitled ``Legal Remedies and Safe Harbors,'' mirrors Section 512 of Title 17, originally enacted by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA). In certain circumstances, Section 512 frees online platforms from liability for infringing content posted by third parties. The effects of Section 512 and the appropriate role of a copyright safe harbor have become the subject of much attention in recent year. Some have called on Congress to update these very provisions, enacted in the days of a dial- up Internet. The U.S. Copyright Office is expected to produce a report on Section 512 around the end of this year, the result of a multi-year process that started in 2015. Moreover, the European Union has recently issued a copyright directive that includes reforms to its analogous safe harbor for online platforms, which may have an impact on the U.S. domestic policy debate. Without taking a position on that debate in this letter, we find it problematic for the United States to export language mirroring this provision while such serious policy discussions are ongoing.…”