Reprnited from” Creative Future” Alert
American Law Institute ” ALI” can go to hell
ALI’s Proposed Restatement of Copyright Could Harm the Creative Industries
A small but influential legal organization called the American Law Institute (ALI) is attempting to “restate” and reinterpret our copyright laws for the nation’s judicial system.
Their effort, wrote a trio of elected leaders in a recent op-ed for The Hill, “has the potential to irreparably harm the creative industries and the millions of Americans who depend on copyright protections to make a living.”
The article’s authors, Sen. Thom Tillis and Reps. Harley Rouda and Ted Deutch, are worried because ALI Restatements, while not law, “are regularly relied upon by our nation’s judges when they are asked to decide on cases requiring expert knowledge of a particular subject.”
But copyright law is primarily statutory law, meaning it was passed by Congress and signed by the President. It doesn’t need “restating.” The law speaks for itself, and any tampering with it is solely the purview of our government’s legislative branch.
“Last time we checked, Article I of the Constitution specifically grants Congress the authority to make laws to allow for individuals in the creative industries to be fairly compensated,” write the op-ed’s authors, “not law professors.”
