Since our founding, Authors Alliance has advocated for policies that protect fair use and non-infringing uses of copyrighted works. As part of our ongoing engagement with the U.S. Copyright Office on fair use issues surrounding the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention provisions, we have answered the Office’s request for comments to advocate for a streamlined, less burdensome rulemaking process in order to protect the fair uses of copyrighted work otherwise threatened by the legal protection the law gives to digital locks.

We believe that fair use is an essential part of the creative ecosystem, and that reasonable exemptions to anti-circumvention laws are both possible and worthwhile. To that end, our comment suggests changes that would simplify the rulemaking process and not require frequent, burdensome re-evaluations of rules that have already proven themselves to be beneficial.  Read the full text of the Authors Alliance comment here.