In an effort to combat the theft of online content, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) on March 17 proposed the bipartisan Strengthening Measures to Advance Rights Technologies (SMART) Copyright Act of 2022.
Specifically, S. 3880, which is cosponsored by U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), would define and designate technical measures to identify, protect or manage copyrighted works, according to the bill’s text.
“In the fight to combat copyright theft, there is currently no consensus-based standard technical measures and that needs to be addressed,” Sen. Tillis said. “I am proud to introduce this bipartisan legislation that will provide widely available piracy-fighting measures and create a trusted and workable internet for our creative communities.”
According to information provided by Sen. Tillis’ office, Congress more than 20 years ago enacted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to provide safe harbor immunity to online service providers, which would not have to pay for copyright theft facilitated by their systems if they worked with copyright owners to create effective standardized technical measures (STMs) that identify and protect against the distribution of stolen content.
Designed to incentivize collaboration, the law actually inhibits it, according to Sen. Tillis, because service providers cannot risk losing their valuable safe harbors if an STM is created. As a result, no STMs have been identified since the law took effect. The current statute also only provides one path to establish that a technological measure is an STM that must be available to all.
If enacted, S. 3880 would create flexibility to allow more existing measures to be eligible for consensus-created STMs and would authorize the Librarian of Congress to initiate a public rulemaking to identify technical measures that certain service providers must accommodate and not interfere with, according to Sen. Tillis’ bill summary.
The legislation is not a filtering mandate that would chill free speech and harm users, the summary says, but instead would create an open process for all stakeholders, including the public, to identify copyright-related technological measures that should be broadly available to all.
“I’m excited to work alongside Senator Tillis with filmmakers, musicians, authors, and artists of all stripes, enlisting the help of online platforms, to address online copyright theft that robs these artists of the fruits of their creativity and hard work,” said Sen. Leahy.