[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A MIDLIFE CRISIS?
IP AND THE INTERNET AFTER 40
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS, INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND
THE INTERNET
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 2026
__________
Serial No. 119-75
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
64-158 WASHINGTON : 2026
=======================================================================
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland, Ranking
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona Member
TOM McCLINTOCK, California JERROLD NADLER, New York
THOMAS P. TIFFANY, Wisconsin ZOE LOFGREN, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
CHIP ROY, Texas HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin Georgia
BEN CLINE, Virginia TED LIEU, California
LANCE GOODEN, Texas PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
JEFFERSON VAN DREW, New Jersey J. LUIS CORREA, California
TROY E. NEHLS, Texas MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
BARRY MOORE, Alabama JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
HARRIET M. HAGEMAN, Wyoming LUCY McBATH, Georgia
LAUREL M. LEE, Florida DEBORAH K. ROSS, North Carolina
WESLEY HUNT, Texas BECCA BALINT, Vermont
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
KEVIN KILEY, California SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
BRAD KNOTT, North Carolina DANIEL S. GOLDMAN, New York
MARK HARRIS, North Carolina JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas
ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri SUMMER LEE, Pennsylvania
DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas
BRANDON GILL, Texas
MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER, Washington
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY,
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND THE INTERNET
DARRELL ISSA, California, Chair
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin Georgia, Ranking Member
BEN CLINE, Virginia ZOE LOFGREN, California
LANCE GOODEN, Texas TED LIEU, California
LAUREL LEE, Florida JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
KEVIN KILEY, California SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER, Washington Vacancy
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
ARTHUR EWENCZYK, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Tuesday, June 30, 2026
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
The Honorable Darrell Issa, Chair of the Subcommittee on Courts,
Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the
Internet from the State of California.......................... 1
The Honorable Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr., Ranking Member of
the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial
Intelligence, and the Internet from the State of Georgia....... 4
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary
from the State of Ohio......................................... 5
The Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on
the Judiciary from the State of Maryland....................... 5
WITNESSES
Sean Astin, President, Screen Actors Guild--American Federation
of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA)
Oral Testimony................................................. 9
Prepared Testimony............................................. 11
Chris Floyd, Counsel, Amblin Entertainment
Oral Testimony................................................. 14
Prepared Testimony............................................. 16
Steve K. Francis, Executive Chair, IP House
Oral Testimony................................................. 20
Prepared Testimony............................................. 22
Christopher A. Mohr, President, Software and Information Industry
Association (SIIA)
Oral Testimony................................................. 31
Prepared Testimony............................................. 33
Bhamati Viswanathan, Visiting Assistant Professor, Suffolk
University Law School
Oral Testimony................................................. 51
Prepared Testimony............................................. 53
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted for the record by the Subcommittee on
Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the
Internet are listed below...................................... 79
Materials submitted by the Honorable Darrell Issa, Chair of the
Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial
Intelligence, and the Internet from the State of California,
for the record
A letter to the Honorable Chuck Grassley and the Honorable
Dick Durbin, from the Entertainment Software Association,
Jun. 9, 2026
An Appeal Case, Vetter Communications Corporation v. Resnik
Music Group, United States District Court, Middle
District of Louisiana, United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit, Jan. 12, 2026
A statement from the Motion Picture Association, Inc., Jun. 30,
2026, submitted by the Honorable Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Member
of the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property,
Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet from the State of
California, for the record
A letter to the Honorable Darrell Issa, Chair of the Subcommittee
on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and
the Internet from the State of California, and submitted by the
Honorable Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr., Ranking Member of the
Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial
Intelligence, and the Internet from the State of Georgia, from
Frank Cullen, Executive Director of Council for Innovation
Promotion (C4IP), Jun. 29, 2026, submitted by the Honorable
Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr., Ranking Member of the
Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial
Intelligence, and the Internet from the State of Georgia, for
the record
APPENDIX
Materials submitted by the Honorable Darrell Issa, Chair of the
Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial
Intelligence, and the Internet from the State of California,
for the record
A letter to the Honorable Darrell Issa, Chair of the
Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial
Intelligence, and the Internet from the State of
California, and submitted by the Honorable Henry C.
``Hank'' Johnson, Jr., Ranking Member of the Subcommittee
on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial
Intelligence, and the Internet from the State of Georgia,
from Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP), June 29,
2026
An article entitled, ``In Graphic Detail: New data shows
publishers face growing AI bot, third-party scraper
activity,'' Apr. 13, 2026, Digiday
A letter to the Honorable Darrell Issa, Chair of the
Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial
Intelligence, and the Internet from the State of
California, and submitted by the Honorable Henry C.
``Hank'' Johnson, Jr., Ranking Member of the Subcommittee
on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial
Intelligence, and the Internet from the State of Georgia,
from Stanley Pierre-Louis, President & CEO, Entertainment
Software Association, Jun. 29, 2026
A letter to the Honorable Darrell Issa, Chair of the
Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial
Intelligence, and the Internet from the State of
California, and the Honorable Jerrold Nadler, a Member of
the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of New
York, from several manufacturers, businesses, and other
organizations
A report entitled, ``Unboxing Fake Fashion Unleashing Real
Dangers,'' Feb. 2026, American Apparel & Footwear
Association
QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE RECORD
Questions submitted by the Honorable Darrell Issa, Chair of the
Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial
Intelligence, and the Internet from the State of California,
for the record
Questions for Sean Astin, President, Screen Actors Guild--
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-
AFTRA)
Response to question from Sean Astin, President, Screen
Actors Guild--American Federation of Television and Radio
Artists (SAG-AFTRA)
Questions for Chris Floyd, Counsel, Amblin Entertainment
Response to question from Chris Floyd, Counsel, Amblin
Entertainment
Questions for Steve K. Francis, Executive Chair, IP House
Response to question from Steve K. Francis, Executive Chair,
IP House
Questions for Christopher A. Mohr, President, Software and
Information Industry Association (SIIA)
Response to question from Christopher A. Mohr, President,
Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA)
Questions for Bhamati Viswanathan, Visiting Assistant
Professor, Suffolk University Law School
Response to question from Bhamati Viswanathan, Visiting
Assistant Professor, Suffolk University Law School
A MIDLIFE CRISIS?
IP AND THE INTERNET AFTER 40
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Tuesday, June 30, 2026
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and
Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in Room
2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Darrell Issa
[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives Issa, Fitzgerald, Cline,
Gooden, Kiley, Lee, Fry, Johnson, Lofgren, Ross, and Kamlager-
Dove.
Mr. Issa. The Committee will come to order. Today, the
Subcommittee, without objection, will be authorized to declare
a recess at any time. We welcome everyone here today for the
Intellectual Property and Internet Subcommittee hearing which
will cover a broad range of current, but important, issues.
Candidly, we in Congress often wait until there is a crisis
to move. We are known for the expression what we do is nothing
at all or overreact. We cannot afford to do it either at this
time. The growth of various types of theft of intellectual
property through counterfeiting and piracy, in fact, has become
an epidemic. Most of the rest of the world has at least made
efforts to deal with these problems. This hearing will
establish once and for all that the various pieces of
legislation need to move and need to move quickly. That means
that this Committee must come together, along with the Senate,
to deal with economic crimes around the world, but particularly
those who come to our shores and take advantage of a weaker
enforcement. Additionally, the growth of AI means that in the
near future, what we see as a growing epidemic will rise even
further.
I want to particularly to focus on something here today. It
is not just the money that is stolen from people whose creative
works are being taken. It is, in fact, the funding of criminal
networks, whether it is Hamas and Hezbollah, ISIS, Al Qaeda, or
others, almost all these groups in addition to the conventional
drug cartels, are operating criminal syndicates that include
various forms of intellectual property theft. That means that,
in fact, not doing something in a timely fashion is causing
people to die. It is causing countries to live in terror. It is
costing countless amount of dollars that U.S. citizens pay in
addition to the loss of revenue to those who create
intellectual property.
I want to make it clear. We all know that there are people
who innocently think that watching on a bootleg channel
something they would otherwise pay for, the cost is simply they
are getting a deal of free. If that money is, in fact, going to
syndicates that are involved in other illegal activities, you
are funding criminals. You are funding people who hurt people.
Four decades ago, the Advanced Research Project Agency,
ARPANET, adopted a communications protocol. I was a young
lieutenant in those days and we used it. We used it in a very
limited fashion. One day, somebody came up with the idea of a
way to communicate that became known as email. In those
decades, half a century or so, we have gone from a connection
of military bases and universities for purposes of furthering
research to the internet as we know today. In addition, the
advantage of Moore's Law, in fact, has made almost anything
that you have seen in science fiction all the way back to Jules
Verne and all the way through to the Terminator, a reality
today or in the near future.
Decades ago, we passed the Internet Freedom Act and the
DMCA laws to protect fostering and nascent technology. They
were good. They worked some. They have, in fact, been modified
over time, and the notice and takedown orders have, in fact,
made them more effective. The cooperation of all parties,
including the internet providers for whom this is simply
overhead, in fact, has been appreciated. It has come without a
cost.
Recently, the Supreme Court made decisions that provide
certainty as to, in fact, whether there is liability for
various actions or inactions. We are not here to talk about
that today. We are, in fact, recognizing that we have to all
work together if we are going to stop copyright piracy over the
internet.
Only a few days ago, I was honored to be at the White House
to watch a UFC fight. It was amazing. The problem is all over
the world people are watching those fights for free. The cost
of that fight included $3 million of set up and take down there
at the White House. Somebody has to recognize that this is not
without a cost. In addition, those who took the blows deserved
to be compensated. To do so requires that, in fact, the
purveyors be able to put that out in a streaming format and
have it, in fact, only go to those who pay the small amount to
get it.
Digital video piracy includes illegal downloads, streaming
of films and television and has resulted in an estimate that of
loss of over 230,000 jobs and conservatively $47.5 billion
reduced to our GDP. That is the economic cost. I have already
covered, in fact, the cost that I am not overreacting to say
people have died as a result of the money that is gained from
that piracy.
While millions of listings for copyright-infringing content
are removed every day under notice and takedown process set
forth in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, right holders
have raised concerns with the speed. Today, our witnesses come
prepared to answer the major question, what is the reasonable
speed? Can we do it at the speed of sound? Can we do it at the
speed of light? More importantly, in a 45 minute or sometimes a
fraction of that live sports broadcast, can we do it soon
enough to make it no longer profitable for those who pop up and
sell their clandestine wares.
The internet is open to substantial news sales revenues for
brands. That is enabling the trafficking of fake brands, and I
want to make it very clear. I live on the Mexican border. My
district covers 80 miles of the Mexican border. In my district,
we have a holding facility that holds up to 40,000 square feet,
racked three and four high of illicit drugs. Those drugs often
look like the real drug. They are in similar packaging. The
pill or other container always seems to look very legitimate.
It even has the right letters on it. When it is fentanyl, it
has led to people dying.
Counterfeiting is not simply a matter of getting a purse
that looks cool that you can take to a party and maybe no one
will know or even you may even brag that it is a fake, it also
includes the counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals that, in fact,
once again lead to people dying.
The patchwork of laws in many of these cases, State by
State, asks the question, should we continue to have States
make decisions that make honest, law-abiding purveyors of
products life difficult, while in fact, not effectively
stopping the clandestine work? We made this decision in 1972
through both legislation and court that we were not going to do
it with copyright for music. It has been a long time since and
there has needed to be some additional items done. We have
profited as a Nation from having not just one standard, but
having the Federal Government being able to aid States in the
enforcement of copyright protection. The same needs to happen
relative to AI. We all know it has to happen and more
importantly, if we are going to protect the law-abiding
citizen, we can't have it be simply an additional law on top of
hodge-podge laws that, in fact, can create conflicts or greater
regulatory requirements.
There needs to be a congressional act targeted in a
measured way, meaning don't overreact. Any Federal legislation
must balance three goals to avoid hobbling American innovation
in online services and AI technology which will, in fact,
ensure the continued leadership around the globe of U.S.
technology. Let us make sure, in closing, that there is one
thing beyond all that I have mentioned that is at stake and
that is global leadership. America leads the world in high
tech. We do so because we welcome people from around the world
to join us through immigration. Our universities are the envy
of the world for both those who come and stay and those who
come and go back. That leadership is challenged by many others,
but particularly by a China that, in fact, does not respect
intellectual property, but does appreciate the innovation. They
appreciate it so much they steal it.
It is Congress' responsibility thus to, in fact, make clear
that we are in a war, we are in a battle, we are in a
competition against China, and we are determined to win.
Before I recognize the Ranking Member for his opening
statement, I would like to set a tone quickly with a short
video. If we could please run the video with audio.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Issa. I now recognize the Ranking Member of the
Subcommittee for his opening statement.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. When the modern internet
was born in January 1983, many considered it just another
Department of Defense project for the military. Thanks to
taxpayer funding, the United States was able to partner with
research universities and eventually private companies to
harness this innovation for use by the general public. Over its
first 10 years, the internet evolved from an application to
compete with the Soviets to a place where people could socially
connect, conduct business, and communicate with others, and
even through--it evolved into a medium for artistic expression.
Today, it is hard for many of us to imagine a world without
new recipes at our fingertips, instant news updates, or
pictures of our friends and family on or social media news
feeds. Good or bad, it is no longer the question. The internet
is inescapable from modern society. This is quickly becoming
the same with generative artificial intelligence which has been
adopted by businesses and consumers alike in just a few short
years.
Even with widespread adoption of transformative technology,
it is imperative that we continue to protect rights holders
when technology is used to steal intellectual property, defraud
consumers, and increase inequality. Products available online
from a trusted website can seem identical to those at brick-
and-mortar stores, but instead, are produced with harmful
chemicals or contain dangerous malware. These nearly identical
knockoffs can damage your favorite brand's reputation and harm
their ability to stay in business.
Websites that miraculously have Project Hail Mary streaming
for free really are too good to be true. That product with Tom
Hanks in the commercial may not have actually been endorsed by
Tom Hanks, just a replica created with AI. Some of these may
seem harmless at first glance, but they matter to me and my
constituents.
Film and TV spending in Georgia, the Hollywood of the
South, hit $4.4 billion in 2022 with 412 productions, but
increased costs have devastated our film and TV market.
Spending was down $2.3 billion in the last Fiscal Year with
just 245 productions. Our writers and actors need jobs to keep
creating and market changes have made that all the more
difficult to achieve. Across creative industries, innovators
from writers and software developers to musicians and painters
are watching their works used to train AI models for free,
while the barrier to entry gets higher and higher.
If Congress' role today is to play armchair psychologist to
the internet's mid-life crisis, it is imperative we view harms
to creators as the symptom of a more pernicious disease. The
question we should be asking ourselves is: Are the innovations
before us serving the American people or do they exclusively
benefit a small handful of the wealthiest, most powerful
corporations and individuals in the world? Georgia's 11 million
plus residents have a median household income of just under
$82,000. Mark Zuckerberg is worth $220 billion as of December
2025. Groceries in Georgia were found to be the 11th highest in
the country earlier this month. Elon Musk just became the
world's first trillionaire. Homes in 79 percent of Georgia's
counties are considered unaffordable for the average worker.
Jeff Bezos just spent an estimated nearly $50 million on his
wedding. Americans are clearly facing an affordability crisis,
but those at the very top are doing well and getting wealthier
and wealthier every day.
The price of everyday consumer devices such as your laptops
and computers have continued to climb, now to an estimated 15-
25 percent. Data centers are driving up utility costs,
straining the grid and degrading the quality of the everyday
appliances families depend on, like our air conditioning and
heating system. Senior citizens are having to choose between
paying their utility bills and their prescriptions and the rich
get richer. The middle class shrinks and the poor get poorer.
The benefits from technological innovations, while
impressive, are minimized if everyone can't enjoy their
benefits. We can do this by meaningfully deploying technology
in a way that uplifts us all. This means acknowledging creators
as a key part of the ecosystem that is building AI and
compensating them as such. This means enacting protections for
American workers, building responsibility, and deploying
equitably.
I look forward to hearing from the witnesses how we can
better protect America's artists, innovators, and the creative
fields. I thank Chair Issa for holding this important hearing
and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Issa. The gentleman yields back. Thank you. We now
recognize the Chair of the Full Committee, Mr. Jordan, for his
opening statement.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be brief. I just
want to thank you for your work for now over two decades on
trying to stop copyright piracy and harmful uses of AI while
not harming choice, innovation, and maybe most importantly
First Amendment liberties. We appreciate your tireless work,
and I know this is your last session in Congress. We will
probably have a few more hearings, but I did want to take the
time to thank you for this issue and so many others that you
have worked so hard on and I thank our witnesses for being here
and look forwarding to hearing from today's panel. With that, I
yield back.
Mr. Issa. I thank the Chair. I profusely thank the Chair.
We now recognize the Ranking Member of the Full Committee, Mr.
Raskin, for his opening statement.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you kindly, Mr. Chair. Welcome to our
witnesses.
A couple of months ago, I got a postcard in my mailbox
which let me know that three books I have written over the
course of my career had been used to train Anthropic's Claude
AI large language models, and because of this I was entitled to
be part of the settlement in the Bartz v. Anthropic case. Now,
this surprised me because first it reminded me that I used to
write books. Now, I just post 280 characters every day. It also
surprised me because I didn't know anything about the
litigation, much less did I know anything about the fact that
Anthropic had essentially swallowed up the contents of three of
my books, apparently rejecting the relevance and utility of
several books I had written.
Anthropic had never called to ask me to use my books, but a
judge found that Anthropic's ingestion and digestion of my
books without payment was fair use. Claude AI may not be
allowed to simply reprint my book and regurgitate line for line
and sell it, but it may profit off my word choice, my cadence,
my style such as it is, my conceptualizations, and my research,
among other attributes of my writing for free.
Now, if I finally get around to filling out the form which
means I have to finally get around to finding the postcard, I
may get a de minimis check in the mail because the judge did
find Anthropic had used pirated versions of the books that it
used to train its large language model and the parties,
including apparently me, settled shortly after this holding.
Now, it would be cavalier to write these training episodes off
as a random or minor incidence. AI companies intentionally
select works with which to train their large language models,
often with zero intention of paying the creators any royalties
for use of their creative intellectual labor.
Bartz v. Anthropic is just one ominous decision floating in
a sea of developing case law in this brave new world to engage
in a fair use vernacular borrowing of H.G. Wells famous work of
science fiction, but it is illustrative of the proliferating
tensions between existing law and social values that have
materialized as we live through this time of astonishing
technological transformation. The advent of the internet and
the explosive emergence of AI have fundamentally changed the
way that we interact with each other, the way we conduct
business, the way we think about human thought and human
feelings and human work, and the way we create and consume
books, songs, and other creative works.
Now, I tend much more to the heady enthusiast side of such
changes over the brute and Luddite side when it comes to
technological innovation, but that is only because I have a
profound faith in democracy and our capacity to manage
technological change when we put our minds to it. Now, is the
time to pose and grapple with urgent and searching questions
about the moment.
How do we integrate titanic new technological changes in a
way that supports, rather than undermines, the basic needs and
values of our society? We know from experience that innovations
mean little if they are left to create inequality and
domination, joblessness, and poverty.
How do we prevent the concentration of power and wealth,
but instead work to fairly distribute the benefits of new
technologies so they become part of our common life and
inheritance? In this new era, we must ask ourselves what is
fair, what is just, and what will secure the greatest good to
the greatest number of people. That is what I hope we will be
doing today.
When the DMCA became governing copyright law nearly 30
years ago, dangerous products and merchandise that infringed on
intellectual property rights overwhelmingly had to be bought in
person. Movie and music pirates created physical copies of
recordings and literally sold them on the street corners. Our
laws did not contemplate the spread of streaming where content
piracy occurs on a daily basis all over the world as far away
as Vietnam, the Philippines, and the pirates can create a new
infringing site the moment one gets taken down. Consumer
products used to be bought almost exclusively in stores with
the occasionally counterfeit handbag on the street.
Today, harmful counterfeit products like exploding
batteries, toxic baby cream, and asbestos-laden crayons can be
bought often, usually unwittingly, by consumers online and they
arrive at their doorsteps in a matter of hours. Even our music
laws were designed for a world where listeners discovered music
through their stereos, which is why we are left with laws that
prevent performers from being paid when their music is being
played on the radio. These issues affect not just the two
million employees of the movie industry or the nearly $12
billion in revenue from the music industry, but also the
consumers who end up paying the cost of counterfeit goods that
break or cause harm or just drive up the price of the real
product.
The laws on the books may no longer be fair for these
affected industries, and they are almost certainly unfair to
consumers. I understand there are many proposals out there with
ideas for improving the current situation. I am a proud
cosponsor of one of them, the American Music Fairness Act,
which would ensure that performers are paid when their music is
actually played on the radio. In many ways, AI's supercharged
problems have been percolating since the advent of internet.
Generative AI models allow to use internet faster, more
accurately, and beyond our individual technological capacities,
but our laws have not kept pace with all the changes. Our
intellectual property laws were created at a time when it was
safe to presume that one must be human to have cognition and
intellect. Some would argue that is no longer the case. It is
long past time we considered how to protect the creative fields
and address the ramifications of the proliferation of deep
fakes, training AI models on copyrighted material, and other
areas where AI may be unfair to both consumers and creators.
I know some of my colleagues want to do away with the
regulation of AI companies altogether, but we can protect
content creators and help businesses thrive at the same time.
We don't have to choose. Congress should help provide for the
safe adoption of generative AI models that take into account
the environmental labor and social consequences of such
technology and we should do so while allowing the States to
experiment with different approaches.
I am dismayed by those who have caved to a small group of
billionaires and now a trillionaire, who own these AI models
and have proposed broad preemption of State common law causes
of action and State legislative decisionmaking with no Federal
regulation at all. There is no reason we should do away with
common law tort claims that act as the basic national safety
net for fairness.
The National Institute of Science and Technology should
absolutely be allowed to test frontier models and if AI models
are being built on the hard work of artists, writers, and
inventors, we should be thinking long term to ensure that there
are more artists, writers, and inventors a generation from now
creating material to sustainably train the next wave of
generative innovation to come.
The rational next step for this Committee is to ask
ourselves how we can map a path forward for all Americans to
use technology while ensuring laws that protect consumers and
creators, workers, and families.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, I yield back to you.
Mr. Issa. The gentleman yields back. Without objection, all
other opening statements will be included in the record. We now
go to our distinguished panel of witnesses.
Mr. Sean Astin. Mr. Astin is the President of the Screen
Actors Guild. By the way, one of the few things I haven't done
and I continue to say, I am available for a bit part. Am I
allowed to do that?
Anyhow, the American Federation of Television and Radio
Artists, commonly known as SAG-AFTRA, he is himself an actor
and a long-distinguished career in film and television. To name
just a few, he has appeared in the ``Goonies,'' ``Rudy''--by
the way, we are going to talk about ``Rudy.'' That is going to
happen. How can we not? Even if you didn't go to the right
college, the ``Lord of the Rings'' trilogy, ``Stranger
Things,'' ``Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,'' and many more.
Thank you for being here as a well knowledgeable expert
witness, in addition to your current role.
Mr. Chris Floyd. Mr. Floyd is a legal and business strategy
advisor to Amblin Entertainment, a film and television
production company, basically, he is Steven Spielberg's most
trusted advisor. He previously served as the Chief Operating
Officer and General Counsel at his partnership for a decade and
held various positions with Dreamworks Studios, Universal
Pictures, Paramount, and Walt Disney Productions. Welcome.
Mr. Steve Francis. Mr. Francis is the Executive Chair and
President of IP House, a global intellectual property
enforcement company. He previously served as the acting
Executive Associate Director of Homeland Security
Investigations as the Director of National Intellectual
Property Rights Coordinator. Thank you very much and welcome.
Mr. Christopher Mohr. Mr. Mohr is President and Chief
Executive Officer of the Software and Information Industry
Association, a collection of entertainment, consumer, and
business software companies. He previously served as a Senior
Vice President for Intellectual Property and General Counsel at
the same organization where he led the association's
intellectual property policy and antipiracy.
Last, but not least by a long shot, Dr. Bhamati
Viswanathan, or close to it. The doctor is a nonresident fellow
at the Kemochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts at Columbia
University. She is also a Visiting Assistant Professor at
Suffolk University Law School where she teaches courses in
contract and transactional law. The doctor is, in fact, the
author of a number of books including, ``How Creative
Industries Can Harness Intellectual Property to Survive in a
Digital Age.'' Welcome, and I apologize. As one left hander to
another, I said I am not going to mess this up and between my
hoarse throat and the other, I apologize.
I want to thank all of you for being here. Pursuant to the
Committee rules, I would ask you to please rise, raise your
right hand, to take the oath.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm under penalty of perjury
that the testimony that you are about to give is true and
correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief
so help you God?
Thank you. You may be seated. Let the record reflect that
all witnesses answered in the affirmative.
If you watch C-SPAN, you know I have to give this
admonishment, that you will have five minutes in your opening
statements, but 100 percent of all the material you brought
with you and your opening statement plus additional material
you may supplement with will be placed in the record, thus
leaving you completely free not to just read what you brought,
although some of you just might. With that, we begin, Mr.
Astin.
STATEMENT OF SEAN K. ASTIN
Mr. Astin. Well, this is good stuff. You're going to want
to hear it. Chair Issa, Ranking Member Johnson, the Members of
the Committee, thank you very much for convening the hearing
and for your continued work modernizing American intellectual
property law.
Thank you, Representative Lofgren, for your leadership on
combating foreign digital piracy, and Chair Issa, for all your
work and for your work on the American Music Fairness Act. The
issues therein matter to the livelihoods of the 160,000 union
performers and media professionals I represent as President of
SAG-AFTRA.
Today, I would like to speak about the abuse of
nonconsensual digital replicas of our voices and likenesses.
For all of human history, if someone saw your face and knew it
was you, if they heard your voice and knew you had spoken, for
thousands of years that simple connection was enough, your
face, your voice, and your presence, reality itself was
affirmed and simply put we knew who we were to each other.
Artificial intelligence has begun to intervene and break
that ancient connection. Today, someone can realistically make
you appear to say something you never said, to endorse
something you don't believe in, or even convincingly depict you
confessing to something you had no knowledge of. For the first
time in human history, the experiences we have always shared
are no longer secure. Our relationship with the community is
distorting thanks to a wave of technology made widely available
without much concern for public
safety.
In my line of work, we deal with emotions, so on behalf of
our performers I am here to tell you what this moment feels
like. To begin, we make our livings by granting the use of our
voices and likenesses to our employers. That is what they pay
us for. Through every audition and with every career setback,
we know, we rely on the fact that when the jobs finally come,
we have something uniquely ours to offer. Now, imagine a
performer waking up one morning to discover on their phone a
version of themselves that never was, but they are watching it
and so is the rest of the world. The voice and the face are a
perfect match. For the performer, it is a moment of terror. Who
is seeing it? Will anyone ever hire them again? Will their
reputation that was built over a lifetime be destroyed in a
moment? Every casting director, every producer, every
executive, and every member of the public can see it. Even
their family may hesitate for a moment. They can reach for
something deeper. He would never say that. That is not who she
is, but who are we?
Think about anyone you love. Your understanding of them is
built from memory. Imagine that memory being contaminated. The
thing that brings us back to the real person is our faith in
who they truly are. In the world of deep fakes, the damage is
done instantly and without mercy. The public has no obligation
to discover the truth about someone. They just keep scrolling.
Our members have no ability to protect themselves from this
kind of abuse, and neither does the teenager humiliated by a
fabricated image, neither do parents trying to protect their
children, neither does anyone whose reputation can be
threatened by a digital replica they never authorized.
Artificial intelligence is changing the way human beings
experience life. We all know that this moment demands wisdom
and action. Technology is not our enemy. Throughout our
history, America has chosen both innovation and responsibility,
usually sadly, only after ordinary people have suffered some
calamity, but there is a right path. It is obvious that
civilization is in the throes of a technological whirlwind the
likes of which we have never seen and as of this moment,
Americans are being forced to surrender their basic
relationship to one another.
We don't want to stop progress. We need to civilize it.
Many Americans may never own a home or accumulate significant
financial wealth, but every American does possess something of
immeasurable value, their identity. That God-given gift really
should belong to us and surely, we can all agree that no one
else should be permitted to commercially exploit our identity
without consent.
In the world of entertainment, our image and likeness have
been the substance of our transactions, but in the wild, we do
not own them. We should, and you can make it so.
Members of the Committee, what I am saying about this
moment and about who we are is that every human being should
remain the author of their own existence. Reality should remain
verifiable. Consent is not a nuisance. Reputation matters, and
truth is truth, and it is worth protecting. Thank you very
much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Astin follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Issa. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Floyd.
STATEMENT OF CHRIS FLOYD
Mr. Floyd. Chair Issa, Ranking Member Johnson, and the
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me here today. I am of counsel at Amblin
Entertainment, Steven Spielberg's film and television company.
I have worked in the Amblin family for 20 years, including a
decade as Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel. I have
overseen many business and legal functions including content
protection.
Two weeks ago, Amblin and Universal released Steven's film
``Disclosure Day,'' adding to his legacy of films like ``War of
the Worlds'' and ``Minority Report.'' ``Disclosure Day'' fully
embodies Steven's beloved sci-fi genre, embracing modern
technology that makes transporting audiences to another world
even more thrilling. However, these technological advancements
also present challenges. Steven's prior sci-fi movies were
released in a drastically different marketplace, before the
internet super charged digital
piracy.
When ``Minority Report'' was released in 2022, piracy was
still limited largely to hard goods, DVD bootlegs from
camcorders in a theater with muddle sound and shaky video, then
sold on street corners. They were poor knockoffs and customers
knew it. While the scale of piracy was reason for some concern
then, today, digital piracy costs the U.S. economy a staggering
amount at least $29 billion annually. We now expect each
release will be made available immediately in perfect digital
form from offshore pirate sites with global reach. This
substantial increase in quality, coupled with wide and
immediate availability on any device, makes this an urgent
economic and consumer safety problem.
Together with our studio distribution partners, we spend
hours seeking removal of these infringing videos. Additionally,
all the studios and streamers created the Alliance for
Creativity and Entertainment to work with global law
enforcement to combat piracy, but even with these extensive
efforts, representing tens of millions of dollars and countless
work hours, price still inflicts huge harm on the market for
our films.
When we find ``Disclosure Day'' online, we have limited
recourse, primarily because most pirate sites are operated by
overseas criminal enterprises. We have laws that enable us to
go after pirate sites in the U.S., but Bulgaria, Vietnam, the
Philippines, these jurisdictions sit outside the practical
reach of U.S. law enforcement, but easily reach U.S. consumers
online.
The global revenues from U.S. films are shared with cast
and crew in residuals and pension, health, and welfare
payments. Profits are poured into new productions in every
State of the union, including with local businesses. Shooting a
one-hour television episode generates around $475,000 per day
locally, while a feature film generates $670,000 per day. The
billions siphoned from our economy by these overseas criminals
should be available for these future productions and payments
to industry workers, but they are not.
Today, piracy detrimentally impacts millions of creators in
the U.S. entertainment industry and the economy as a whole
while funding a global network of crime. According to Digital
Citizens Alliance, European authorities dismantled a piracy
operation across 11 countries in 2024 that generated $3.5
billion yearly seizing drugs, weapons, and millions in crypto
currency. In Spain, Operation Fake exposed another site that
also dealt in drug trafficking and money laundering, resulting
in 30 arrests and millions in frozen assets.
What is to be done? Well, I ask you today for the tool
proven effective in nearly 60 countries globally, but still
lacking in the U.S, judicial site blocking. Under these laws,
when a court determines there was full and transparent process
that an off-shore site is dedicated to piracy, it can direct
internet providers to block local access. Studies prove site
blocking results in fewer visits to piracy sites and an
increase to legitimate sites. Portugal witnessed a 70 percent
drop in traffic. Australia saw a 25 percent decrease. The U.K.
experienced a 10 percent surge to legal services. This would be
a game changer for our industry's 2.3 million workers and
America's creative economy.
Historically, the U.S. led the world in IP enforcement, but
we have lagged behind for the past decade. Other countries have
shown us how to do this without impacting speech, due process,
or the internet. It is time the U.S. reasserts its leadership
role in antipiracy.
Finally, allow me to turn briefly to artificial
intelligence where the U.S. is the leader in innovation as it
should be. As a tool, AI can further empower us to tell
compelling stories and reach audiences, but as we consider how
to maintain America's competitive advantage against China and
other countries, we must also remain the global leader in both
the innovation and creative industries. How these AI companies
win the AI race and how they treat copyrighted work will affect
the course of human creativity in the future. We will never
maintain America's lead by lowering our IP standards to match
those of the Chinese. That is why our industry supports the NO
FAKES Act, which combats dissemination of unauthorized AI-
generated deep fakes while safeguarding protected expression
such as parody, news, and biopics.
I would like to thank the Subcommittee for your dedication,
as we look forward to working together rebuilding a vibrant
U.S. entertainment industry. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Floyd follows:]
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Mr. Issa. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Francis.
STATEMENT OF STEVE K. FRANCIS
Mr. Francis. Chair Issa, Ranking Member Johnson, and the
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today.
I spent over 25 years in Federal law enforcement, including
as the Director of the National IPR Center, working alongside
colleagues from Homeland Security investigations, U.S. Customs
and Border Protection, the Department of Justice, and law
enforcement partners across more than 30 countries. I have seen
IP enforcement from multiple angles. I know where the
government excels and where prioritization creates challenges
for enforcement.
I appear today on behalf of IP House, a global IP
protection enforcement company I cofounded, after recognizing
critical gaps in the enforcement landscape. IP House operates
across every major jurisdiction because IP crime is truly
global. We detect and disrupt infringement networks at scale,
bringing global intelligence and operational visibility that
complements the work of governments and rights holders
worldwide.
IP House confirms what I witnessed throughout my career. As
commerce has moved online, IP crime has grown more
sophisticated, more organized, and harder to disrupt. Criminal
networks now exploit the speed, scale, and anonymity of the
internet to steal IP and endanger consumers on a global scale.
Today's hearing is incredibly timely.
Counterfeiters operate through anonymous digital
storefronts on the trust, online marketplace that American
consumers use every day. They rapidly cycle through the
seller's identities, domains, and payment processors to evade
enforcement, often moving illicit proceeds long before
traditional legal remedies can take effect. That is why IP
House focuses on following the networks and the money, not just
removing individual listings. It dismantles criminal
organizations rather than chasing one product at a time. They
are not harmless knockoffs. They include counterfeit
pharmaceuticals, automotive parts, electronics, children's
toys, and household products that threaten the health and
safety of the American consumers.
One of the most effective U.S. civil tools against
counterfeiting is what practitioners call Schedule A
litigation. It allows rights holders to bring a single action
against multiple, anonymous foreign sellers engaged in the same
infringing conduct. Just as importantly, it allows the courts
to quickly freeze the seller accounts and related assets before
these proceeds disappear beyond the reach of U.S. jurisdiction.
That changes the economics of infringement. Without this tool,
rights holders are forced to file dozens or even hundreds of
nearly identical lawsuits against anonymous defendants who have
moved assets and simply reappear under new identities faster
than the courts can reach a judgment.
Schedule A is one of the few law enforcement tools capable
of matching the speed, scale, and anonymity of today's online
infringers while preserving judicial efficiency and due
process.
Online piracy presents an equally sophisticated challenge.
Our recent organized piracy crime report published with the
Digital Citizens Alliance demonstrates that many of today's
piracy operations have evolved in the criminal enterprises,
built on a systematic theft of American intellectual property.
A single network we examined reached more than 22 million
subscribers and generated roughly $288 million a month. When
law enforcement dismantled that operation, they uncovered
drugs, weapons, and crypto currency, evidence that these
organizations are engaged in far more copyright infringement.
Large scale piracy networks view IP theft as low risk, high
reward criminal enterprise and changing the calculation is what
IP House is built to do.
The enforcement gap is real and measurable. Rights holders
are stuck with reactive platform tools that provide relief
measured in just hours. More than 40 peer Nations now use court
ordered site blocking to cutoff foreign, fully infringing
content sites and services at the stores. The results have been
significant. In the U.K., traffic to the targeted piracy fell
nearly 89 percent after blocking orders took effect. The United
States has not kept pace with its international partners,
leaving creators, consumers, and businesses at a competitive
disadvantage.
Meanwhile, criminal organizations are now using generative
AI to accelerate infringement to an unprecedented scale. These
include mass produced counterfeit listings and brand
presentation to synthetic media as well the name, image, and
likeness violation. While the technology is new, the underlying
challenge is not. Bad actors continue to exploit innovation
faster than our enforcement tools can adapt.
I hope my testimony today provides the Subcommittee with an
operational perspective on how today's online infringement
networks actually function, where the current enforcement tools
are succeeding and where meaningful gaps remain. IP House is
committed to working with Congress to ensure American
innovators, creators, consumers, and businesses are protected
in the digital age. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Francis follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Issa. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. Mr. Mohr.
STATEMENT OF CHRIS A. MOHR
Mr. Mohr. Chair Issa, Ranking Member Johnson, and the
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear here today.
Before I get into the substance, I just want to take a
moment to thank you, Mr. Chair, on behalf of our Members. You
have been a genuine ally to us on patents and a straight
shooter even when we have disagreed. That leadership shows up
here, too, convening round tables on foreign piracy, advancing
thoughtful, site-blocking discussions, and choosing an
educational hearing over a rush to markup. It has been a
privilege to work with you, and we are grateful for the way
that you have sought to both protect and advance American
innovation.
SIIA represents more than 350 companies in the business of
information, AI developers, publishers, financial data firms,
and software creators. Unusually for a technology trade
association, our members sit on both sides of many IP issues.
We have platforms that distribute works and their rights
holders. Some of our members have both functions.
Over the course of our 40-year existence, we have seen a
lot of technological changes that have affected member
operations, some of which caused them to bring competing world
views. When examining new IP and other policy proposals, we
tend to ask the same questions every time. Does existing law
already address the harm? What new risks does the technology
create? What limits make a statute both effective and
constitutional?
I am going to briefly highlight two areas. Two years ago,
SIIA testified in front of this Committee about unauthorized
digital replicas. On digital replicas, the harm that these
unauthorized uses cause is real. These AI-generated voices and
likenesses are already defrauding consumers and exploiting
performers. We support the creation of a Federal right here and
we supported the TAKE IT DOWN Act last year as proof Congress
can build precise, targeted tools for AI-enabled harms.
In terms of vehicles that have recently moved, the NO FAKES
Act has received a lot of attention. From our perspective there
are four problems that remain and each one is fixable.
First, the preemption clause grandfathers in existing State
law and only displaces State regimes for expressive works. The
bill doesn't really deliver on the promise of a national
standard.
Second, the counter notification safeguard against wrongful
takedowns only exists inside the bill's safe harbor framework,
statutory damages up to $750,000 per work and a life plus 70
terms, no company will risk staying outside that framework. In
practice, this isn't a narrow opt-in category. It is close to
the entire digital ecosystem operating under a takedown regime
with no guarantee necessarily to put wrongly removed content
back up. That raises concerns over speech at scale.
Third, there is no general intent requirement risking
liability for general-purpose AI tools and inadvertent look-
alikes alongside the actual bad actors.
Fourth, again, this goes to scope. The bill's frame is
touching user-content platforms, but it reaches deep into the
broader digital economy and shifts Section 230 treatment along
the way. We don't have a problem with that resolution, but it
emphasizes the importance of getting the details right.
Now, we have supplied red-line language on these issues.
These are fixes, not objections to the bill's premise, and we
are ready to keep working on it until we handle these problems
correctly.
The second topic that I am going to address is foreign
piracy and site blocking specifically. This is a different
question, and our members are generally split onsite blocking
as a remedy and my goal here is not to advocate a specific
solution, but to present the equities that Congress has already
begun to consider.
First, the underlying problem is real. These pirate sites
sit outside U.S. courts' reach, and they keep operating through
mirror domains and offshore hosting, no matter how many times
they are shut down. The concerns over how blocking gets
implemented are just as real. Blocking is a level of DNS
resolvers, doesn't respect borders. Targets increasingly share
cloud infrastructure with thousands of unrelated lawful sites,
so a narrow order can have overbroad effects. Foreign
experience shows that legitimate services can get swept up by
mistake. We are not here to endorse or oppose a specific
proposal. We are here to say that if Congress moves forward,
four guardrails should be nonnegotiable: Real judicial process
with some adversarial testing, not rubber-stamp petitions;
targeting precise enough to protect shared infrastructure and
lawful content; strong, good-faith safe harbors for the
providers required to comply; and no mandate for a single
government-prescribed technical method.
On both issues, our position is the same: Get the goal
right, get the mechanism right, and we all win. Our members are
going to have to operate under whatever regime Congress
creates.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and I
welcome your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mohr follows:]
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Mr. Issa. Thank you. Dr. Viswanathan.
STATEMENT OF BHAMATI VISWANATHAN
Ms. Viswanathan. Chair Issa, Ranking Member Johnson,
Ranking Member Raskin, thank you--pardon me, it is catching.
Thank you so much for having me. My name is Bhamati
Viswanathan. I teach at Suffolk Law School where I teach
copyright law, constitutional law, contracts, and Artificial
Intelligence and the Law. Happily, for all of us, I am here
today to talk about contracts and copyright, both, and not
constitutional law.
I want to frame this with three thoughts quickly, and then
I am going to move onto three potential solutions that I see.
The frame is--I am going to take it from the title of this
hearing, which struck me--the ``Mid-Life Crisis'' question.
Those of us who sit around thinking about our mid-life
sometimes, think of mid-life as both a crisis sometimes, but
also an opportunity. It is an opportunity to rethink. It is a
very strategic moment for us to think.
Disruption, and since there was no internet 40 years ago,
which is how we framed this hearing, begins with opportunity,
and it begins with innovation. It also begins with disruption.
We are at another moment and another inflection point.
I want to frame this by saying we are not talking about one
industry, we are talking about two, two critical industries.
Mr. Issa, you said that America leads the world in high
tech. Yes. We also lead the world in arts and entertainment, in
culture. A $2 billion industry for tech. Many people are
surprised to hear $3.3 trillion and more in 2024 was the
estimate that was given. Two robust industries. We cannot kill
the goose that lays the golden eggs. We need the goose to be
alive, and we need the eggs to be gold; right? We need both
sides.
Second, we believe in our IP system. We have a strong and
robust IP system. It's the pride and joy of our country, and it
is in our Constitution. Sorry. I said I wasn't going to talk
about con law, and I just did.
We believe in the patent system. The patent system is
strong and robust. We need to make sure that the copyright side
is strong and robust, too. We can't just throw it off and scrap
it at the behest of a few tech companies that say, ``oh, we are
going to lose the arms race.'' There are multiple arms races
going on here.
Our arts and culture, no one compares to it. K-pop,
Bollywood, and Eurovision? Sorry. Nothing is as great as our
export of IT in both areas of technology and culture.
For the new times we need new rights and, importantly, we
need new enforcement mechanisms. Let me get to my three
solutions that I think are strong on the table, and that we
should really consecrate right now as urgent.
First, as you have heard my, my fellow panelists speak
about, judicial site blocking. For those of you who don't know
what that is, it's a process through which you ask a court to
stop an infringing website. You know already that it exists
almost exclusively to disseminate infringing material. You are
worried about a bad actor here.
There are due process steps in place to say, OK, we need to
make sure that is true. Once we've made sure that is true, what
can we do?
We can ask a court to say, through a no-fault process,
without seeking damages, you need to shut this down because we
can't. We can't go after these bad actors.
They are often extraterritorial. We really have no other
recourse. Over 50 countries have, have adopted it, as you have
heard. The U.S. Copyright Office has written a letter of
support to you in Congress about it. It is timely. It is a fair
and reasonable, balanced solution.
Second, I am going to talk very quickly about digital
replicas because I know you have heard about them a lot. They
are a problem. They affect people. Because we are people, we
have personal property rights in our identity and in our
autonomy.
Let's not forget why this exists. It is rights in
ourselves. As Mr. Astin said, ``we have human rights.'' Those
rights deserve to be Federalized. They deserve to be made into
a Federal property right. This needs to be made something that
occurs across the country.
We can carve out First Amendment concerns. We can carve out
the scope of it, but it is something that needs to be addressed
now.
Third, perhaps nearest and dearest to my heart, is the
question of the treatment of the ingestion of copyrighted
materials by large language models (LLMs).
What does that mean? We use this word a lot. We say LLMs
train themselves on copyrighted material. Well, they can train,
but just like the rest of us who train, they have to pay for
the training.
Licensing agreements need to flourish. They are beginning
to happen. We need to make sure that creators, creators who
create the stuff that we consume, are compensated--small
creators, too, not just large intermediaries. We need to do
that now.
There's a lot of court cases pending, as Mr. Raskin said,
various cases. We also need to make sure that there are
licensing and market-based solutions that make it fair for all
of us.
Thank you so much for giving me the time to hear.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Viswanathan follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Doctor. We will now proceed under the
five-minute rule for questions. By mutual agreement, we will go
to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Cline, first.
Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your
leadership on this issue. You have given us a historical
perspective that dates back many decades. I know many here and
watching have been a large part of that history.
As you said in your opening remarks, it is important to
remember that history, but also to be cautious in any movement
that we take moving forward. Recognizing that the DMCA, notice
and takedown, all these things that were put in place 20 years
ago, may need updating, but don't need wholesale replacement.
We are not going to throw out the baby with the bath water, or
the goose that laid the golden eggs, whatever metaphor we want
to use.
Mr. Mohr, in Cox v. Sony, this spring the Supreme Court
held 9-0 that an internet service provider is not
contributorily liable for its user's piracy unless it induced
the infringement or tailored its service to it, which retired
the older knowledge plus material contribution theory.
With that route against intermediates now narrowed, does a
no-fault judicial remedy to restrict access to foreign piracy
sites become both the cleaner legal tool and the more realistic
one, since it turns on blocking rather than on anyone's fault?
Mr. Mohr. Certainly, from the rights' holder side of our
constituency that this is exactly how they view the
significance of the Cox decision.
I will say that for the platforms that we represent, that
there the problem, however, of these offshore sites existed
well before the Cox decision was decided. The folks that are,
the folks like Sci-Hub or that I mentioned in my testimony, and
the other sites that are ripping off the other folks on this
panel don't care about Cox.
That is really the reason for the, from the copyright
owner's side, the push for site blocking orders, because they
need a way to get at websites that U.S. courts can't reach.
Because if these websites existed in the United States, they
would not last long.
Mr. Cline. You are absolutely right. The Chair led a
delegation of Members on a visit to the U.K. and other
countries more than year ago and to see firsthand how their
site blocking regimes are working. What we saw very clearly was
that these remedies can work to reduce traffic on pirate sites
and to increase traffic to legitimate sites, while safeguarding
speech, due process, and legitimate internet activities, all
without imposing undue burden and liability risks on the ISPs
that are directed to implement the court orders.
My understanding is that liability concerns on the part of
domestic ISPs has been the most significant impediment to
advancing legislation in the U.S. I am also told that the
proposals offered to date in the House and Senate all include
provisions to address that concern. My questions are these:
First, do we now know enough from the experience with the
many foreign jurisdictions that have implemented this remedy
successfully over the last 15 years that we can confidently
move forward with the U.S. legislation and avoid any unintended
consequences?
Second, in light of the Cox decision is the concern about
ISP liability now a moot issue?
Mr. Mohr. I am not sure I understand the second part of
that question.
With respect to the first part, as my testimony makes
clear, I am not in a position where I can say a bill is good or
a bill is bad. What I can say is that a bill that contains the
guardrails is one that I believe Congress can advance. Those
guardrails I mentioned in the opening by adversarial testing,
the targeting is the biggest concern.
Because of the internet architecture, again, from the kind
of infrastructure/internet side of our membership, right, the
architecture of the internet is designed to efficiently
distribute, not necessarily it is not designed to throttle. The
risk, then, of over-blocking because of that architecture and
liability for over-blocking from the standpoint of those
providers, is real.
With respect to the guardrails, if the safe harbor isn't
there, if there is no tech mandate, and if the targeting is
precise and the process is fair, that is a roadmap for a
successful site blocking bill.
Again, the devil's in the details. I am not in a position
where I can give you those.
Mr. Cline. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Issa. The gentleman yields back. We now go to the
Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Mr. Johnson for his five
minutes.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Professor Viswanathan,
AI systems require massive amounts of data for their training
and development. The AI companies are continuing to train on
copyrighted material to release better and better models.
Should AI developers be required to disclose the dataset
used to train their models?
Ms. Viswanathan. Thank you so much for asking me that
question, Mr. Johnson.
I want to start by saying we use the word ``training,'' but
I am not sure that this is always the right word. They do
ingest enormous amounts of material to generate what they
generate. When we train, when you and I train, when we learn,
when we go use things, we pay for those materials. We license
them or we buy them.
I buy a book in the bookstore, I use it in the library
which has already paid a licensing fee, I am training in
respect, but that is not the same thing that the AI companies
are doing. What they are doing is: They are gobbling up huge
amounts of material.
Do they need to disclose their datasets? That is one part
of it.That in the various cases I have been talking about that
Mr. Raskin was just referring to the one where his books were
ingested. Right? What happens there? I don't think they ever
paid you for those books. You will be paid, you will find that
postcard in the settlement, because it is the point is, right,
it is not just disclosing what they trained on.
By the say, in Bartz, in the Bartz case we found they were,
in fact, training on pirate sites as well; right? We are
learning what they are training on, and it is not good.
They should also be made to realize that you can't just
take it. It is not a get-out-of-jail-free card to say, ``oh, it
is expensive to license.'' They need to license the materials
that they are using, as one does.
It needs market-based solutions are the preferred solutions
because parties come to them. We can't--we need to monitor
what, in fact, they are doing. I think disclosure is a part of
that but not the entire story. It is an important part of it.
Most of all, I think we need to recognize that harm is
being done to the markets, the actual and potential markets of
copyright holders. That is not what fair use in the copyright
fair use term was ever legally or in the spirit meant to have
happen; right?
It was not meant to be a, oh, it is beneficial and so you
get to use it for free. It is beneficial, but it is also
valuable. The value needs to be paid.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you. Mr. Floyd, how has the
proliferation of internet piracy changed the way that movies
are made?
Mr. Floyd. It has had a direct impact on the number of
movies that we make and which movies we make. When we are
making a decision as to go forward with a film, we do a profit
and loss analysis. We look at the history of the movies in the
last few years, and we look and see what kind of revenues have
been generated.
As piracy cuts down on the revenues, the legitimate
revenues that we are getting, we determine that our next movie
is going to make fewer dollars and that impacts maybe our
ability to spend a certain amount of money on a movie or make
that movie at all.
What you end up with are fewer movies being made, fewer
people being employed along the way, and more risk being taken
by the studies on the movies that they do go forward on.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you. Mr. Astin, you have made a career
off your name, image, likeness, and voice, everything we talk
about when we examine digital replica legislation.
What about individuals whose names or likenesses are not a
commercial business, do you think those individuals need to be
protected as well?
Mr. Astin. Absolutely. They need it as much, if not more.
There, yes, if you are--I mentioned in my testimony that if
you are a teenager somewhere, in your district for example, and
for whatever reason, with very little difficulty someone is
able to depict you, as you--not you, this imagined teenager--
saying they are doing something--
Mr. Johnson. I get it.
Mr. Astin. You, too. We all, everyone in here.
Mr. Johnson. Yes.
Mr. Astin. We traffic in our identity and our reputations
all the time. Well, so does a 14-year-old kid. Yet, these big
platforms benefit financially from when some horrible depiction
is done of them. They have no ability to do anything about it.
Yes, they should have their identity protected as a right.
Thanks.
Mr. Issa. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Issa. The gentleman yields back. We now go to the
gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Fitzgerald.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you, Chair. I just want to go back to
February 2024 for a moment because that is when our Committee
first began discussing the issue of AI and digital replicas. I
see a lot of familiar faces on the witness stand as well, and
in the audience where were also in Los Angeles for that field
hearing.
Mr. Mohr, in fact, you testified at that hearing, if I
remember correctly. It was also the first time Mr. Astin was
there as well, that first time we met.
Mr. Mohr, let me start with you. When you testified in 2024
at that field hearing, you mentioned that there are already a
number of State and Federal laws that address many of the
concerns with digital replicas. If Congress were to act, and it
should act in areas where AI poses a particular risk of harm
left unaddressed by current Federal and State laws, so is that
still kind of your testimony today, or has anything changed in
the past two years since we last debated kind of the issue of
AI?
Mr. Mohr. What I would say is that it is true that a number
of the harms that occur from the unauthorized use of digital
replicas are covered by, in many instances, will be covered by
existing State laws and remedies. There is no Federal remedy.
That presents an opportunity for Congress to present a
uniform rule and uniform protection which will benefit both the
folks who are injured and the businesses that actually have to
implement this by a uniform set of rules and a clear standard
of what is allowed and what is not allowed.
To do that, there are a number of equities that this body
will have to balance.
Our members view the current State of digital replica law
as an opportunity to legislate constructively.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Mr. Astin, let me come to you. I remember
that we were able to visit in L.A. I know this is kind of
general and wide open, but why is the Federal digital replica
right, why is it important to you and those that are in the
entertainment industry right now? What is prompting people to
kind of move in one direction or another?
Mr. Astin. Well, every day we have our images, our voices,
our faces, and us created fictitiously in ways that people
don't, can't tell the difference. It looks like I am saying or
doing things. It is happening all the time.
I had one friend, a colleague, I saw a video image of him.
He is really upset in this image. He was talking in great
detail about some problem that happened.
I called him up and I said, ``Hey, man, are you OK?'' He
goes, ``Yes. What are you talking about?'' I said, ``Well, I
saw you were so upset about this thing.'' He said, ``No, I
wasn't.'' I said, ``You were sitting in this room and there was
a thing behind you.'' He said, ``No, I wasn't.'' His wife walks
in and says, ``I can't believe you would fall for that fake.''
I am thinking. I went back and looked at it. I opened it up
and I couldn't tell the difference between him and this
creation.
You know what? It is, ``could you please take this down,
YouTube? Could you please pull this off your site?''
They need this law to have the instruction that it is OK to
take it down.
Mr. Fitzgerald. The process to do that is tedious.
Mr. Astin. No. They just have to know it is OK. Let them
work out the tech. These guys back here have it worked out
pretty good. Right? They have got a system for how to take it
down; right? Yes.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Good.
Mr. Astin. It is working. They have to know that it is OK,
that we have got our First Amendment that we love and we have
to protect. The First Amendment is implicated in this NO FAKES
Act in both directions.
You have to be able to do satire, tell the news. You have
to be able to tell historical things. You have to be able to do
all these things.
You also can't rob someone else of their First Amendment
right by having it misrepresented as them. It needs to be
clarified for these companies where this country stands in
Federal law on the nature of intellectual property, individual
intellectual property.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Very well said.
Mr. Astin. Thank you for asking.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Very well said. I will yield back.
Mr. Issa. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Fitzgerald. I do yield.
Mr. Issa. I just want to cover one thing. Doctor, you said
you are not going to do Constitution. Since you are here, I am
going to pinch you a little bit.
Is it true that States under the Constitution don't have
international reach? In other words, they, by definition, might
be able to pass a law, but to enforce against countries outside
the U.S. is completely limited in the Constitution to the
Federal Government?
Ms. Viswanathan. I invite you to my Con Law class next year
and we will talk.
It is still to a certain extent an open question. Yes, what
you are saying is essentially true. There is a case called
Vetter right now that is pending that is asking about
international reach of certain copyrights that we have. That
case is in the Fifth Circuit. It is--and going up, hopefully.
It is unclear. That one thing that Federalizing laws like
the digital replicas law does is it gives us a level of
security that we are playing at a national level and that we
are not getting into the morass of States' rights versus
international rights.
Site blocking, too, this is something that is so agreed on
so many countries in the developed world, it is relatively
uncontroversial at this point. It is fair to say that. Digital
replicas are going to be a problem worldwide.
We can get not just bipartisan support, but international
support behind this, which it is a rare opportunity. We should
grab it.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Doctor. I would tease it up for our
constitutional scholar here on the dais, the gentleman, the
Ranking Member Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Well, thank you for that, Mr. Chair. I have to
get you a copy of some of my books.
Mr. Issa. I downloaded them already. What are you talking
about?
Ms. Viswanathan. Not piratable.
Mr. Raskin. Professor Viswanathan, the Northern District
Court in California held in Bartz v. Anthropic that the use of
copyrighted works for AI training constitutes fair use. You
just voiced your skepticism about thinking that it is training.
According to the court, Anthropic is permitted to purchase a
copy of a book and then use that work to train the model on
language, writing, and story.
Do you agree with the court's conclusion? Is that the right
analysis?
Ms. Viswanathan. That is not constitutional, that is a
leading question.
Mr. Raskin. Yes.
Ms. Viswanathan. That the court is, that courts are
struggling. They are struggling for the same reason we are. The
court said, to be accurate, that it was transformative.
It is still a question about fair use. Well, for those of
you who are not copyright people, I am sorry for you but there
is still time and I will help you through this. Right?
I say to you, you infringed. You say, well, you are right,
I did, but I did it for good reason. It is an affirmative
defense. It has four prongs to it. The biggest ones are, did
you do something really important, transformative? Did you
change it in some meaningful way that makes it important that
we preserve that?
The fourth factor is, does it affect the market? I want to
point this out: Actual or potential market, right, for the
work, for the original work?
The courts are confused and they are concerned, because
they see the effect on potential markets. At least the Bartz
court does; right?
Mr. Raskin. Right.
Ms. Viswanathan. What is the potential market? You could
license that work otherwise. Right?
Mr. Raskin. All right, are there licensing regimes in
copyright law that can serve as a model?
Ms. Viswanathan. Absolutely there are. There are licensing
regimes that exist right now.
You just asked someone a couple of months ago, how are
movies made? They license and cross-license all the time. That
is how movies get made. When you embed a piece of song into a
movie, you license it. You cross-license it. There are regimes
that exist. Fair use is not an open and shut case. There are
over 100 cases that are pending right now.
Mr. Raskin. All right. Let me just ask you, are we going to
be able to get to the solution within the existing contours of
copyright law, or do we need to legislate to address the brave
new world we are in?
Ms. Viswanathan. It is hard because we are at a moment
right now where we want to go with a light hand because we
don't want to hamper innovation. We would like to encourage
licensing regimes.
The thing I am concerned about, Mr. Raskin, is the small
creator who can't go up against the big tech company and say,
``Help me here.''
There are also, by the way, schemes to help pay small
creators. We have BMI and ASCAP standing as examples of
collective rights, collective rights organizations that clear
rights for people so that they can get their royalties. What
exists right now? There is a lot that exist right now that we
need to tap into.
Mr. Raskin. OK. Thank you. Mr. Astin, I know that digital
replicas are a big issue for SAG-AFTRA. You negotiated hundreds
of pages of a four-year deal with the Motion Picture
Association that would prevent studios from creating fake
actors, as I understand it, absent some compelling reason for
doing so, or replicating real ones. That seems to be more
categorical; you can't do that. To get out of using living,
breathing individuals on screen. Could you explain why
collective bargaining agreements with provisions like those are
necessary?
Then, answer whether they are sufficient to protect
creators from individuals using AI to replicate name, image,
likeness, voice, intonation, and so on?
Mr. Astin. Yes, absolutely. They are absolutely necessary
because the relationship between workers and their bosses is
often fraught with being taken advantage of. We are very
grateful that the companies in the previous cycle when we had
our big strike, but in this cycle were willing to work with us
to try and figure out how to manage the fairness when it comes
to digital replication and what you were talking about with
synthetics.
When it comes to digital replication, we are able in
bargaining to achieve an understanding about how much we should
be compensated.
Mr. Raskin. Is that sufficient in your field? Does it cover
all the people in the workforce?
Mr. Astin. Well, our collective bargaining agreement is our
labor.
Mr. Raskin. Yes.
Mr. Astin. So, no. Each different union, the writers, the
directors, and the IATSE, everybody has to make their own deal.
Mr. Raskin. Is everybody represented such that they could
come up with a similar agreement?
Mr. Astin. Everybody has to try to accomplish what we did
first, which is to get meaningful artificial intelligence
protections language in our bargaining. We are respected.
SAG-AFTRA and our policy writers, our contract negotiating
team have really been in the vanguard on this.
To me, for this moment, the important thing is that it is
only good for contracts that we are working with people who are
signatory to our union. This NO FAKES Act and the digital
replication we are talking about exists everywhere else.
That is where nobody other than this body can offer the
protections that we required, which is why we really appreciate
you all working so hard on the piracy but on this NO FAKES Act.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Issa. I thank the gentleman. We now go to the gentleman
from Texas, Mr. Gooden, for five minutes.
Mr. Gooden. Thank you. I am impressed with the Ranking
Member who can turn a Republican witness into a collective
bargaining chat. Not surprised, but impressed. I actually have
a question--
Mr. Issa. You do know that Ronald Reagan once sat in a
similar position. It can happen.
Mr. Gooden. It can happen, yes. No, we are not surprised.
Professor, I was so fascinated with some of the things I
have heard. These long, these LLMs, how do they ingest all this
material, like these, the books we are talking about, the
things you are talking about they should have paid in, so to
speak, for? How do they, how do they consume all this
information?
Ms. Viswanathan. Think of them as the giant Hoover. They
suck them up. Where do they get them? They get them, they troll
the internet. They get them from various websites. As I said,
it has come out in some discovery in some of the cases that
they get them from pirate websites as well.
In the Anthropic case, interestingly, they bought tons of
books and ripped the covers off of them and copied them. It is
essentially disambiguating and copying.
Mr. Gooden. What are you saying--and I am not trying to be
combative, I am genuinely into this--what do you say when
someone, because you said you and I have to pay for these books
before we read them, what would you say if I said, ``well, yes,
but what if I pay for the book and give it to you?'' You are
not going to then go write a check to the author, you are just
going to read the book I gave you. How is that any different
than me just giving a book to an LLM?
Ms. Viswanathan. It is not. Who is giving it to them? I
don't give them my book. I wrote a book called ``Cultivating
Copyright,'' and it was uploaded to ResearchGate, a pirate
website in about three minutes. I know I don't get a lot of
royalties on my book, OK, but that is 200 buck--
Mr. Gooden. I am sure it was interesting, too.
Ms. Viswanathan. Two hundred bucks. No, it wasn't, but it
was 200 bucks. That could have been a couple Starbucks, you
know.
That it is a little false to say that they are--it is just
like receiving a book. Sure, the first sale doctrine would say
that you could receive a book. They are not receiving it. They
are trawling the internet, they are finding it, and they are
taking it.
They are actually claiming fair use. Again I will just say,
fair use means you are saying I infringed. You are not saying,
I have the right to this. You are saying, I infringed but I did
this for a good reason.
There is an admission there that they are in fact taking
stuff that is under copyright.
The whole point of copyright law, y'all, is to make sure
that creators get incentivized, but also that they get paid so
that they keep doing what they do. Right? We all work because
we love what we do, but we also need to put food on the table.
Mr. Gooden. Do you think there is a solution that they
would go for? Do you believe, is it your impression that they
are just against any and all, no matter what?
Ms. Viswanathan. No, that there have been some licensing
agreements, especially in music lessons, things, for example,
that have been emerging. I just think they think it is very
expensive. They think that in terms of the arms race against
China it might grind, put grind, put salt in the gears, and
that it might slow things down.
Again, I want to just emphasize that it is two industries
here. We can't just talk about the cost to the tech industry;
we should talk about the cost to the copyright industries.
Mr. Gooden. Thank you. I enjoy hearing you. I would love to
take one of your classes someday. I yield back.
Mr. Issa. Would the gentleman yield?
Ms. Viswanathan. Always welcome.
Mr. Gooden. Take my time, sir, please.
Mr. Issa. I thank you. I want to follow on the question of
fair use and so on.
As you see it, Doctor, clearly the right to input, in other
words the right to read a book, isn't in controversy. The right
to read or to learn from what is on the internet is not in
controversy.
The part that I want to ask all our panelists for a moment
is, as we look at the absolute right to read, it would seem
that we have two questions:
Do you pay for which is copyrighted, similar to the way you
would buy a book? That is a fairly straightforward. The cost of
your books is on the cover of it, so to speak.
The question, though, that I have for all of you is, once
somebody has learned from, should this Committee look to the
nature of the output? Because I want to go back to fair use
that you cited very accurately--Shaquille O'Neal took my very
words and put it in one of his rap songs, literally my voice,
not my likeness but my voice.
When I asked him about it one day, he looked down at me and
said, ``fair use.'' I have never forgotten that I never
followed up after he said it.
The question, though, is should we be looking at output
more than input? Meaning, some input is the result of
education, meaning it doesn't look like the original input in
any way, shape, or form. It is a result of learning. Some have
a similarity, and some, as Rudy would say, if you will, is him,
his likeness.
Should that be a standard that is not in any of the current
legislation, per se, relative to the injusters? I will let you
quickly answer.
Ms. Viswanathan. Quickly. It is tough.
Mr. Issa. Each of you.
Ms. Viswanathan. It is quickly, it is tough. It is
complicated. Law professors' favorite answer: It is
complicated. This is why I take exception to the word
``training''--when I, as the creator artist, train, I train so
that I can learn things, so that I can make something new.
Mr. Issa. Right.
Ms. Viswanathan. Some people use AI, right, and these large
language files to create new things. We should encourage that.
I also think we should be restrained in saying you took
something in my style. We don't want to start copyrighting
style, because style is something that we want to see developed
and grow. It is not something that is copyrightable, in fact. I
don't think it should be.
Your exact words? Boy. Maybe a short phrase was not
copyrightable. If he took a paragraph from your book, that
would be less likely to be fair use.
Mr. Issa. It wasn't my book.
Ms. Viswanathan. I know. It was you saying something.
Mr. Issa. It was me saying, ``Protected by Viper. Stand
back.''
Ms. Viswanathan. OK. Well, that is a tough one; right? It
was a short phrase.
The point stands, right, we should be able to use short
phrases from each other, unless it is a trademark violation,
which is another question altogether.
The question about outputs is tough; right? When they are
exact copies, we already have copyright to protect against that
kind of infringement. It gets squishier and more difficult.
The other question is, as those outputs get more and more
created by prompts and less and less created by humans, do we
want to copyright that stuff at all?
Well, if there is some human authorship, the Copyright
Office has drawn a hard line and said there needs to be an
author behind that. That is the right line to draw.
Mr. Issa. OK. On that note, one answer is going to have to
be sufficient. We now go to the gentlelady, my friend, and
indulgent to my question, Ms. Lofgren.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Mohr, in your
testimony you note that copyright holders currently lack a
targeted judicial remedy against foreign pirate sites operating
beyond the reach of U.S. courts. The current law isn't
effectively reaching many of the worst foreign piracy sites.
That is exactly the gap that the Foreign Anti-Digital
Piracy Act is intended to address. The bill is bipartisan and
bicameral, and it was crafted really very carefully for more
than two years, actually. I engaged with copyright holders,
technology experts, service providers, and public interest
advocates. After two years of sorting through various issues,
it resulted in that bill, commonly known by the unlovely
sounding FADPA.
It is grounded in simple principle that Congress can fight
online piracy without sacrificing due process, re-expression,
privacy, or the open internet.
Now, I have continued working with colleagues, both in the
Senate and here, on discussion graphs. We are working and
dialoging, trying to find a viable path forward.
I would just like to mention, people have understandably
raised the role that I played in SOPA so many years ago. As
many of you know, I played a central role in stopping that
adoption. That is not because I support piracy. I don't. It was
because those proposals raised real risks to the open internet,
free expression, and due process.
I am hopeful that we will be able to make progress even in
this Congress or, if necessary, in the next in getting
something like FADPA adopted.
Professor, your testimony describes judicial site blocking
as kind of a no-fault process, no damages, no blame assigned,
and no effort to hold providers liable for infringement. Given
that, is it fair to say that Congress can provide strong
liability protections for service providers that comply with
the court order without also codifying broader, secondary
liability rules from Cox? What do you think of that?
Ms. Viswanathan. Yes, if you are asking me whether there
are sufficient protections built into judicial site blocking,
absolutely there are.
We have been talking about it for a while now and we have
seen it implemented in various countries. Yes, I think
legitimate, noninfringing uses will still flourish. The
question is really the bad actors, the pirate sites that we
can't go after. It's whack-a-mole.
Ms. Lofgren. Yes.
Ms. Viswanathan. That is what we are trying to solve.
Ms. Lofgren. I am interested as we noted, Congress is not
usually quick to act. We have discussed the ruling in
California, fair use, essentially finding that data for
training models is transformative, nonexpressive and,
therefore, protected. Reasonable argument can be made on the
other side. Meanwhile, we are not doing much here.
Now, I am wondering if anybody can address the
technological protections that could be available to
individuals? There can be digital watermarking. It is possible
to make sites unavailable to, to AI scoping up.
The question is, would Congress by rule or could the
Executive by rule, or do we need to by rule enhance that
opportunity for people to take technological steps to protect
themselves from the Hoovering up of data? Anybody got an idea?
Ms. Viswanathan. So far, it has been sort of leaky. There
are watermarks and there is encryption and there are, there are
ways. There are so many end runs, and that is part of the
problem.
One of the things Ms. Lofgren, that we could do is perhaps
in-
centivize companies that are creating technology, possibly by
subsidizing them somewhat.
The caution is fair and reasonable. We can't progress
quickly. Again, we are concerned about stifling innovation. It
is a very reasonable concern. The technological solutions have
been--there is a will and, hopefully, where there is a will
there is a way. So far, they haven't been perfect. Meanwhile,
technology is moving so rapidly.
Ms. Lofgren. The Copyright Office was working on what is
copyrightable. Their ultimate conclusion was you have to have a
human author--
Ms. Viswanathan. Right.
Ms. Lofgren. --to have the protection. I agree with that.
Here is the rub. If a human author is using AI to create, then
they should have protection. Where do you draw the line between
it is AI-generated and it is a human using AI as a tool?
Unfortunately, before they reached the end of that process,
the President illegally fired the Registrar and then fired the
Librarian, and they have not been refilled.
Do you think existing copyright law sufficiently addresses
AI's role in creating? Do we need some more revision and
guidance from experts in the Copyright Office, Professor?
Mr. Issa. You can briefly answer that, though, but we are
out of time.
Ms. Viswanathan. Yes. At the moment, the Copyright Office
is holding a fair line. It is basically saying to show us the
human back here.
If you can show us what you did, how your project--I tell
my students this: Show me your prompts and I better be able to
do it by doing those prompts as well. That is copyrightable.
I think that is fair. It shows that the human, in fact,
guided the AI. That is going to happen, like with any tool.
Whether we can continue to do that or not remains to be seen.
Mr. Issa. I thank the gentleladies. We go to the gentlelady
from Florida, Ms. Lee.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As we hear today, the
internet has created extraordinary opportunities for
innovation. It has also made it easier to steal intellectual
property and exploit identity through AI-generated content. As
Congress considers whether our laws have kept pace, we have a
responsibility to protect creators, innovators, and everyday
Americans while preserving free expression and ensuring that
the United States remains the global leader in AI innovation.
All of you for being here today to share your insights and
your expertise in helping us strike that balance.
Mr. Floyd, I would like to start with you. You made the
point that America should win the AI race, but not at the
expense of lowering our intellectual property standards to
match those of countries like China. That is exactly the right
approach, that we shouldn't have to choose between innovation
and protecting American creativity.
As counsel to Amblin Entertainment, you have seen firsthand
how much investment, planning, and talent go into bringing a
project from script to screen. It is important that we
recognize that uncertainty surrounding AI-generated digital
replicas affects not just actors but studios, production
companies, and the thousands of people whose jobs depend on the
success of the creative industries.
How would a clear Federal framework, like the NO FAKES Act,
provide the certainty needed to continue investing in American
storytelling while preserving our leadership in AI innovation?
Mr. Floyd. Thank you for that question. It is a good
balance. We, as other witnesses have talked about, do need to
balance the interests of AI and the interests of our creative
industry. The rules do that.
Something like NO FAKES they carve out exceptions for bio
pics, news, and documentaries, so we have a legal standard and
balance so we know going in what can be used and what can't be
used. We spend, a motion picture company will spend anywhere
from $10-$200 million on a project. That is a huge investment.
There are thousands of people who are working on it. On
Disclosure they have 4,000 employees.
To spend that kind of money and to hire that amount of
people we need to have ground rules to know that our investment
is going to be protected along the way. Balancing those with a
Federal law would help that.
Ms. Lee. Mr. Astin, you spoke about the impact that AI-
generated digital replicas can have on performers, but also
that these same technologies are increasingly being used to
target everyday Americans as well.
Whether it is an actor whose performance is replicated
without consent, or a teacher, a veteran, a small business
owner, a teenager whose voice and likeness is cloned to commit
fraud or damage their reputation, the underlying harm is the
same: Someone is exploiting another person's identity without
permission.
Would you speak to how protecting an individual's voice and
likeness should be a right for all those people, but also, what
you are hoping to see Congress do to make that a reality?
Mr. Astin. Absolutely. Thank you so much for that. It is
easy and obvious when you look at performers, if something
happens with their reputation, their identity, their likeness,
and their voice, the impact of their, to our business is
immediate.
Really what is at stake is you want to have some mechanism
to stop someone from doing something harmful to you. The way
you do that is Congress tells these companies you are not
allowed to use a deep fake of some--to me, I don't know if it
is because I have three daughters, I picture their--I guess
they are getting older now. Sorry, guys. They are 29, 23, and
20. If somebody deep fakes them and there is nothing I can do
about it feels so, it is so horrible.
The idea that you guys could pass a law that says I can go
to YouTube and say, please take this down. My daughters on
their own behalf can say, please take this down. They have a
law that says, well, yes, that has been established in the deep
fake. That is not your identity. They can take it down.
I just want to live in a world where they just can't abuse
people like this. They just can't make you.
It should be an outlier that someone steals your identity,
your credit card identity, whatever it should be an outlier
that somebody bad, there is a bad actor out there, bad
behavior; right?
This is so massively available to everybody to do without,
just it is so simple. You just prompt a little bit. Make Sean
look like he is doing this, or whatever, and it looks so
realistic. Their creativity, their nefariousness can have me
doing something, and we are just sitting here, that should not
be allowed.
It is just as plain as the nose on your face. It should not
be allowed to make somebody do something or say something they
didn't do or they didn't say. That goes for every American. It
goes for everybody around the world. I would appreciate it if
you guys would fix that for us.
Ms. Lee. Mr. Astin, as a policymaker and as a parent, I
agree wholeheartedly with that assessment. Thank you for your
input. Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Issa. I thank the gentlelady. I might have noted that a
generation ago, somebody once said, ``Where do I go to get my
reputation back?'' Perhaps that is a lot of what we are talking
about with deep fakes.
Mr. Astin. You want to hear a Shakespeare one, or it is
sort of a paraphrase?
Mr. Issa. If the gentlelady from North Carolina will
indulge.
Mr. Astin. I am sorry.
Ms. Ross. I will indulge if I don't use my time.
Mr. Issa. Exactly.
Mr. Astin. All right.
Mr. Issa. Please, sir.
Mr. Astin. This is a good one. You take away my life, you
take that which is beastial, you take away my reputation, and
you take the immortal part of my soul. That is a paraphrase,
but it sounds good.
Mr. Issa. OK. You went back further than I could. With
that, we go to the gentlelady from North Carolina.
Ms. Ross. We have gone from the constitutional to the
biblical.
Mr. Francis, you haven't got much action. Many of my
questions about AI have been taken. I am going to ask you the
next question which, by the way, my secretary of State is very
interested in because she ends up having to enforce counterfeit
laws in North Carolina because there are not enough Federal
resources to do it.
By the way, she used to get grants to do that from the
Federal Government. About 20 years ago that dried up.
I want to ask you a few questions and then also ask you
about who our partners should be in enforcing some of these
trademark and copyright counterfeit laws.
You testified that counterfeits in our supply chain pose
significant risk to Americans' health and safety. They range
from unsafe counterfeit auto parts, dangerous technology
knockoffs, poisonous prescription drugs, and toxic personal
care products.
What happens when counterfeits steal the goodwill that
legitimate companies have spent decades building, and use it to
sell products that put customers' health and safety at risk?
How would the SHOP Act help with that?
Mr. Francis. Well, I will start with the partnerships. The
secretary of State in North Carolina, there are so many task
forces at the State and local levels that do tremendous amount
of work.
Yes, ma'am, you are right, the Bureau of Justice Assistance
grants that were available for almost 25 years have essentially
been stopped funding these task forces which have a significant
impact on enforcing intellectual property. We would love to see
the support of that, bringing these grants back, because we
know the consequences without the Bureau of Justice Assistance
grants.
Yes, these counterfeit goods remain to be an extreme
problem, especially with the health and safety risks to the
American consumers. It is very difficult to assess the entirety
of the issue.
When we are looking at these marketplaces that have these
anonymous foreign sellers that are just selling goods online,
there's very few effective ways to take them down from State
and local law enforcement.
Something we have seen as a very useful tool, our Schedule
A litigation. This allows a rights holder to file a lawsuit and
join all these anonymous foreign sellers online in an effort to
recover some of the losses to them.
As it relates to the SHOP SAFE act, from a consumer's
perspective I can answer it that way. I would, as a consumer,
expect to understand where the origin of these products came
from. Most consumers believe that there is a continuous
monitoring of these sellers online. We would love to have and
see continuous vetting of these sellers and where the products
came from.
Ms. Ross. Right. Basically, there has not been effective
enforcement, either at the Federal level or now it is pretty
much unfunded at the State level. We are leaving it up to State
legislatures to decide whether or not they are going to give
State law enforcement the tools they need. Is that correct?
Mr. Francis. That is correct.
Ms. Ross. That is unfortunate. That is something Congress
could do; right?
Mr. Francis. Yes. I will speak for the entire IP industry.
The grants that are provided to State and locals are incredibly
valuable. Today with the priorities of the Federal Government
there is no one more important than State level law enforcement
that are actually doing the work on the ground each and every
day.
Ms. Ross. Great. Thank you so much. I do want to pick up on
something that the Chair asked about the output. Because we
have been focusing a lot on the input, and we have had this
Anthropic lawsuit. I took copyright law when I was in--and I
had David Lange at Duke University who taught me copyright law.
It was so much fun. We started with Ansel Adams.
I want to talk about the output because I know that the
Copyright Office is coming up with rules for what is produced
and whether or not there is human content.
Professor, could you tell us a little bit about how we
could apply copyright law from derivative works to this?
Because it seems to me that if you are actually using something
that somebody else had, you should have gotten the license in
the first place. It wasn't fair use.
Then, it is considered a derivative work. A derivative work
has to have the attribution and all those other things. I am
going to ask for indulgence for the answer to that question.
Ms. Viswanathan. Great question. Definitely a product of
Professor Lange's excellent instruction. It is a good question.
Derivative works are works that come from other works; right?
As a copyright holder you have rights in your own derivative
works. For example, the translation of your book, right, you
have that right.
If AI is being used to create a work that is clearly a
derivative work, we have the copyright law now. We keep talking
about how we want to amend the Copyright Act, now 50 years old.
That is fair. There are new things that need to come into play.
Let's use the tools we have now. The derivative rights--right
is an important part of it. It is an important part of it. It
is not the only part of it.
The tough question becomes what if somebody creates
something that is close but not the same? We want to encourage
that, but we also want to say you can't come too close; right?
You can't take where the authorship is. What did I put into
that thing that made me the author? Author, by the way, can
talk about a musician or anybody else creative.
Copyright law exists and has been enforced for 50 years
successfully. We can apply it to this space and the question of
derivative works.
Ms. Ross. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Mr. Issa. I thank the gentlelady. I now ask for unanimous
consent that a letter statement from the Entertainment Software
Association be placed in the record.
Additionally, we will be placing in the record the Fifth
Circuit decision in Vetter v. Resnik, since it has been
included so much as a part of this hearing.
Without objection, so ordered. We now go to the gentleman
from South Carolina for five minutes.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for having this hearing.
Thank you, guys, for being here today. I appreciate your
testimony.
Mr. Astin, the actors that you represent are generally not
the copyright owners in the films and television shows in which
they appear. Can you explain how piracy, however, impacts you
or the members that you represent? Is the adoption of site
blocking in the U.S. important to those members, and why?
Mr. Astin. We see our work exhibited in places like on
YouTube and around the world where they have not made an
agreement with the people who hold the copyrights. We are
powerless in two directions.
We are powerless to go to those big companies and get them
to compensate us according to our contracts. The people we have
the contracts with, don't seem to be doing anything about it.
That is actually true. Yesterday, a lawsuit was filed and so we
are very--we are looking forward to it.
We are on the business end of a lot of this stuff, and we
don't have a lot of control. We do the best we can to negotiate
the best deals that we can. Then, we hope that the companies we
are in business with advocate for the protection of their IP.
We really want them to be good at that.
Mr. Fry. Would site blocking be something that you and your
members would like to see and appreciate? Would that have an
impact for your members?
Mr. Astin. Well, just as I said, the ability for our
employers who we have our collective bargaining with to
successfully impose the law or that copyright, to protect their
copyright, if that mechanism, or that tool is going to help
them, then we are all for it, absolutely.
Mr. Fry. From a global perspective, It has been testified
today that we were a leader, and maybe still are in some
aspects, but were a leader in establishing standards for strong
IP. We have got some catching up to do. That if we were to do
something, create a more robust system to target these offshore
criminal actors, could you explain what this would mean for the
U.S. generally, and our ability to maintain the status as that
global leader in creativity and innovation?
Mr. Astin. My colleagues would probably speak to it better
than I would. I was pretty moved by what I heard here today
about the other 60 countries that are collaborators in other
areas and are accomplishing in this space. I would rather hear
their experts in that.
Mr. Fry. Mr. Francis, IP House and Digital Citizens
Alliance issued a report in April exploring the growing
connection between global organized crime and online piracy.
What are some of your top line observations of that, to the
U.S. economy and also to our citizens?
Mr. Francis. Yes, the joint publication, ``Organized Piracy
and Crime'' just reiterated that. We are seeing a shift toward
criminal organization syndicates.
When the profits are very high and the risks are very low
we are seeing a significant amount of bad actors organized in
many ways. We showed that these are criminal organizations
because they have a structure, they have operators, they have
supply chains, they have ways to finance the funds, and they
have IT technology significantly impacting the way that these
networks need to be looked at. Right?
The United Nations, INTERPOL, Europol all said that these
types of behaviors are more toward indicators of organized
crime syndicates.
Mr. Fry. How does it affect our citizens, though? How does
that translates to the average person in South Carolina, or New
York, or California that are not directly involved with these
criminal syndicates, or in the film industries, T.V., or
whatever? How does it affect normal Americans and citizens?
Mr. Francis. The effect is the malware that they are
watching these unpaid or paid subscriptions that are illicit
and piracy, that the malware that they are downloading impacts
them because there is a significant amount of data that shows
that they are also victims of identity theft.
It could also show that there is probably not enough
education and awareness around this issue. This report with the
Digital Citizens Alliance really highlights the importance of
education around this area of digital piracy which has a
significant economic impact really across all sectors and
around the world.
Mr. Fry. Thank you for that. Mr. Floyd, really quick as we
wrap up. What are the online effects or the effects of online
piracy on the economics of film and television productions from
the industry itself, to the workers, to the legitimate
streaming sites, and even our citizens? What are the effects?
Mr. Floyd. The impact will hit both the company in deciding
what movies to make and how often to make them. It will impacts
their workers and how many people get hired and paid. It also
impacts people like Mr. Astin's group who have already made a
movie.
What happens is when someone streams it online and pays for
it legitimately, we automatically share a portion of those
revenues with the Screen Actors Guild, with the directors, and
with all those people who worked on the movie. That gives them
a buffer for when they are not working. It is sort of like a
mini retirement plan.
If we are not receiving that money, we don't have the money
to share. They end up making less money along the way for the
work they have already done.
It impacts us and our ability to hire new people. It
impacts them and their ability to make a living off the work
they have already done.
Mr. Fry. In effect, a lot of starving actors in L.A., but
the stereotype is that they are baristas first or bartenders.
You are saying that we might actually see a scenario where they
are making less as an actor than a barista or a bartender?
Mr. Floyd. Absolutely. When there are millions of dollars
gone and then we are unable to share, they are losing a lot of
money.
Mr. Fry. Thank you for that. Mr. Chair, I see my time has
expired. I yield back.
Mr. Issa. I thank the gentleman. We now go to the
gentlelady from California for five minutes.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to start by
saying that I am glad that we are finally having a hearing on
the issue of IP. From my district's perspective, today is the
day when we are actually talking about issues that the American
people care about.
We have had 12 hearings in this Subcommittee, and this is
the first one on this issue. The videos that were played at the
beginning are a testament to the critical nature of this topic.
I actually hope we have more hearings, because each of these
topics deserve their own hearing.
This is personal to me. My district includes Los Angeles
and Culver City. It is home to actors, and musicians, writers,
journalists, content creators, video game developers, and
everyday Americans. For these and more of my constituents their
voice, their image, their likeness, and their performance, that
is their livelihood.
AI we know can create opportunities, but it can also be
used to profit off humans' identities, their voices, and their
likeness.
I am also reminded of a theme in ``Anaconda'' between these
two, Paul Rudd's character and Jack Black's character. Paul
Rudd's character says, ``Who cares about IP?''
Black's response is, ``Literally everyone. That is what big
movies are about. That is why we are here.''
I am also going to make a plug for my Republican colleagues
to join on as a cosponsor to the NO FAKES Act.
The NO FAKES Act includes exclusions for documentaries,
news, commentary, satire, parody, and fleeting uses as well as
safe harbors for multipurpose creative tools, unless they are
primarily designed to produce unauthorized digital replicas.
The video game industry has raised some good faith concerns
that because games rely on fictional characters, background
characters, and user-created avatars, that the bill could
unintentionally capture lawful content or expose developers to
claims based on incidental resemblance.
Mr. Floyd, how can Congress make sure that the bill doesn't
sweep in fictional characters, incidental likenesses, or
legitimate tools that are used in these interactive games?
Mr. Floyd. Well, as long as there are guidelines in the
legislation to help guide where everyone moves forward on it,
it would be helpful.
There are under the copyright laws now you could have
incidental uses or uses that are similar. It is the
substantiality of what goes on. The legislation talks about
that, it will help give guidance to everybody as to know.
If there is one background actor that looks similar, maybe
that is not enough. If it is an exact, one exact replica
wouldn't be too much, but many that are similar might be too
much. You have that balancing act with those guidelines.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you for that.
This has come up about counterfeiters. Mr. Francis, I know
you don't know this about me, but I support the resale
marketplace in a very real way. Trusted resale marketplaces are
incredibly important.
One problem is that bad actors use online spaces to traffic
counterfeit goods. We talked about pharmaceuticals. It really
harms consumers and legitimate businesses. We do need policies
to crack down on counterfeiters while clearly distinguishing
organized counterfeit trafficking from lawful resale.
Mr. Francis, how do counterfeiters exploit the ambiguity
between legitimate resale and sale of infringing goods online?
Why is consumer confusion so important to mitigate in this
context?
Mr. Francis. Yes, thank you, Congresswoman, it is just
deliberate deception. That confusion really is the goal of
these counterfeiters. It is very challenging when you are a
consumer and trying to distinguish between what is real, what
is fake, the listings, the reviews. These are very extremely
deliberate. Of course, extremely challenging for a consumer.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Uh-huh.
Mr. Francis. Yes, we are very much in favor of the
recommerce platforms. It is a growing market. It is one that
really needs to pay particular attention what other
marketplaces have been dealing with in the sense of they have
also been deceived, these marketplaces by this resale market.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Uh-huh.
Mr. Francis. Yes, it is very, especially with antiques and
luxury brands and other products that I think are growing in
this space.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Right. Right. Mr. Floyd, in the
remaining time I have left, about piracy. How much traffic do
pirated websites receive?
Outside of copyrighted content being stolen, what are the
harms that consumers face when they enter these sites and are
asked to enter personal information to access the content?
Mr. Floyd. I don't have the exact numbers on the traffic.
If I could get it, I will get back to you. It is massive
though.
Because when you get on one of these sites you type in
watch disclosure there, you think you are going to a regular
site and then you end up on one of these pirate sites that has
thousands of movies that are available.
What happens, then, is the consumer thinks it is a
legitimate site. It looks like Netflix. It has thumbnail
photographs of everything. It has the list of people who worked
on the movie. You think you are on a legitimate site, and you
type in your credit card. When you type in your credit card
that money is now used for all kinds of nefarious purposes.
Also, there is malware that is on the ads. If you click on
one of those you are now impacted that way.
Then, they steal your credit card information. You, as a
regular, innocent consumer have now been detrimentally harmed
for trying to watch one movie online.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you for that. Mr. Chair, I would
like to enter it. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the
record a statement from the Motion Picture Association before
this Subcommittee on this particular hearing topic.
Mr. Issa. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you so much.
Mr. Issa. I want to thank the gentlelady for her comments.
The 12 hearings we have done, some have been clearly, many have
been on IP, but the fact that this one focuses on piracy
specifically, I take note that I, if I had it to do over again,
would have done more and I would have done it sooner.
With that, I will recognize myself for my five minutes.
Five minutes isn't enough to deal with all the issues were are
dealing with. I think that is clear.
I am going to ask all of you to please revise, extend, give
us your thoughts. Doctor, we will take it all, even though we
couldn't have it all here. I want to focus on a couple of
things.
First, it is clear that we have some laws that the courts
have found they are unable to use effectively. Mr. Mohr, I am
going to ask you a tough one, one that you may not have
actually come prepared for.
In the ClearCorrect case, the Fed Circuit limited the ITC
from enforcing essentially what we have been talking about
here. They can't enforce that which comes in from outside the
country which is intangible.
I am going to ask you and then the others, as we look to do
site blocking and the other enforcements, including and
notwithstanding States that try to enforce Federal law or
contracts, should we be looking to empower organizations like
the ITC, and any other existing body to, in fact, have the
ability to deal in this growing thing of intangible or
nonphysical property in a way that would allow for a broader
enforcement of our laws?
I use that example because it is frustrating. Most of us
didn't know until that case that the ITC can tell Customs to
seize the fake DVD, but they can't seize the incoming, if you
will, fake product. When we talk about site blocking, if the
ITC had that authority perhaps they would have already done it.
I will start with you, Mr. Mohr.
Mr. Mohr. You weren't kidding about that being a tough
question. What I would say is this: I think when you look at
site, I think a couple of things.
First, putting aside the merits of the decision itself,
right, if you are looking, my mind would go to what the remedy
is. In that sense what would the ITC have to do to stop this?
They couldn't issue an order in the abstract. They would have
to find someone, an entity, and tell it, OK, you might not be
doing this conduct, but you must cease enabling it.
That is, essentially, where site--that is site blocking.
Right? The question then becomes for us, the questions would
become what the guardrails are and whether they are
appropriate.
Mr. Issa. Absolutely. I am not going to claim that Ways and
Means and we wouldn't have a lot to do.
Mr. Francis, I am going to stay on this line because it is
the one thing we didn't cover.
The ports of entry into America are Baltimore, Los Angeles,
Seattle, et cetera. The port of entry for products that are
worth countless billions, literally trillions of dollars, in
fact, today is the internet.
Are we to a great extent looking at the customs process
coming into the United States of product that has not been paid
for, product that is, in fact, counterfeit, are we looking at
customs in the broadest sense having to be expanded to include
intangible? Should that be the work of this and the other
Committees in the foreseeable future?
Mr. Francis. Yes, Mr. Chair, I do think that nontangible
items have been a concern. When I was even the Director of the
IPR Center, we didn't really focus our efforts there. I do
think that there could be some legislative and enforcement
frameworks that could be built around that to ensure that we
can do something beyond just the tangible items that we are
seizing at the ports of entry.
Mr. Issa. Quickly, Mr. Floyd, would you say that, in fact,
the problem is bigger than today's hearing and bigger than this
Committee's jurisdiction if we do that?
Mr. Floyd. Yes. It is a massive problem. We are very happy
that this Committee is working on it, but it will go much
beyond this. Yes.
Mr. Issa. Mr. Astin, you have been a superb witness. I am a
fan of your work before you had this job.
You mentioned support for deep fakes. Mr. Mohr and others
have shown us some areas where there could be some unintended
problems.
Is it your position that if we can find the solutions that
meet the goal of deep fakes that, in fact, you would be equally
supportive as an organization to that, as long as we can get to
it?
Mr. Astin. Well, I will do you one better. I have been
watching for three years our team and the other incredible
coalitions work hard to meet every single one of these
potential concerns with openness and creativity. I mentioned
YouTube. YouTube is part of this coalition. OpenAI is part of
this coalition.
Is it complex? Yes, it is very, very complex. They know
their--as far as I am concerned, the core, the essence of this
NO FAKES Act is to protect people's identity. I have actually
been reading, learning, and watching some podcasts about all
your laws, all these kinds of enterprises. Phew, that is a
different lifetime.
This sausage is coming together nice, from my point of
view. I feel like the group that is here and the group that you
are working with will do it. Of course, SAG-AFTRA stands
foursquare behind getting NO FAKES passed into law.
Mr. Issa. Mr. Mohr, I would like you to be able to close on
where you think we can get to the goal of deep fakes and other
legislation, and where the challenges remain?
Mr. Mohr. The challenge, when we talk about the challenges,
I list four. I am going to focus on two.
The first one is preemption. What we don't want is a
situation where the rights are uneven. That leads to
uncertainty both for individuals and for the developers of
these tools, some of whom are now the subject of State statutes
that would purport to create standards for them.
That should be in the domain of digital replicas, a matter
of Federal law.
The second thing I would want to mention is that for us the
counter-notification piece of this. Which is, I come back to
something Mr. Astin said before in that there was a situation
where a friend of his had a video and he simply couldn't tell
who, whether it was real or not.
There are instances where there will be things that are
real and we can't yet tell the difference. In those
circumstances, we should take care to ensure that those
particular instances of expression remain available as best we
can.
Mr. Issa. Good, succinct. I understand that you have a
unanimous consent. The gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I ask unanimous consent
to enter into the record a letter from the Council for
Innovation Promotion supporting the NO FAKES Act, the SHOP SAFE
Act, and judicial site blocking legislation.
Mr. Issa. Without objection, so ordered.
In closing, this is in fact not our last, and not this
Committee's last hearing on this subject. Hopefully, though, it
will be the last one before some of this legislation begins to
move.
I think that, in fact, people you have seen on both sides
of this hearing are close. The issues that Mr. Mohr mentioned
are of great concern but they do seem to be surmountable. I am
going to make one closing statement. Rights of the Chair, if
you will.
This legislation is going to, if I have my way, move under
my watch. It means that those who have said they are close,
they are not opposed to it but they want to, we are going to
test that. Which is that enough is known, language is being
distributed on what we believe is final compromises to get to
legislation.
It is going to be my intention, with the help of my Chair
and old friend, Mr. Jordan, that we will move it out of this
Committee. I say so today because I think all of you have made
the case that allowing this continued damage is simply no
longer possible.
I am going to further close by saying just one thing, which
is I started in the era of protecting my trademarks. I
certainly understood the standard for confusion as to source
was all you really had to prove that you had it infringed.
It shocked me many years later--Professor, you know the
history of this--but, that we didn't use that standard in the
courts. Having said that, if the courts aren't willing to use
trademarks for likeness, then we will have to give them
authority and the mandate to do so. That will be the goal of
this Committee.
The part I have to say at the close is simply that we will
have five legislative days, which with our current schedule
could give you a lot more than five days, to accept additional
statements here, and questions for all of you, and then a
reasonable time to respond.
Will all of you agree to take those questions and answer
them to the best of your ability.
[Affirmative answers.]
Mr. Issa. Thank you all. You have been very generous with
your time. This Committee, the Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
All materials submitted for the record by Members of the
Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet
can
be found at: https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent
.aspx?EventID=119417.
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