Jerry Nadler: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the underlying legislation, which I view as a…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the underlying legislation, which I view as a great step forward. Mr. Speaker, we have heard about the misdeeds alleged of the prior Register of Copyrights, and we have heard what a wonderful Librarian Carla Hayden is; and I agree, she is a wonderful Librarian. But this bill is not about individuals. It is not about whether the last Register was a good or bad Register. It is not about whether she knew what she was doing on modernization or not. This bill is an institutional bill. This bill is against politicizing. This bill is for strengthening and enhancing the stature of the Office of Register of Copyrights. The committee held 4 years of hearings on the Copyright Act. There are many contentious issues that we will be bringing to the floor over the next couple of years on that. This was not one of them. This issue had broad support. Everybody agrees that the Office of Copyright must be modernized. What this bill does is to take it and give it a little more independence from the Library of Congress. The Librarian of Congress is an interested stakeholder. There are many stakeholders in Copyright. Librarians are stakeholders, tech people are stakeholders, content creators, movie studios, authors, and editors--there are lots of different stakeholders. No stakeholder should be in a controlling position.…”