The European Commission's draft copyright law revamp proposal “is more of a regression than the reform we need to support European businesses and Internet users,” said Mozilla Chief Legal and Business Officer Denelle Dixon-Thayer in a blog post. The draft, released earlier Wednesday, would require service providers to monitor content uploaded by subscribers to ensure it's not copyright-protected. The EC proposed its expected pan-EU ancillary copyright aimed at allowing publishers to claim royalties from news aggregation services like Google News (see 1609140010). The regime “does little to address much-needed exceptions to copyright law,” Dixon-Thayer said: “It provides some exceptions for education and preservation of cultural heritage,” while a new exception for text and data mining “could ultimately restrict, rather than accelerate, TDM to unlock research and innovation across sectors throughout Europe.” There are “no exceptions for panorama, parody, or remixing,” Dixon-Thayer said. “We also regret that provisions which would add needed flexibility to the copyright system -- such as a UGC (user-generated content) exception and a flexible user clause like an open norm, fair dealing or fair use -- have not been included.”

Pandora and Warner Music Group reached a direct licensing agreement Thursday covering WMG's full music catalog. "With this agreement, we're on a path to launch the world's most personal and complete music experience that our listeners will love," said Pandora CEO Tim Westergren in a news release. Two days earlier, the company signed deals with other music labels (see 1609130048). That paved the way for its subscription plan announced Thursday (see 1609150046).

The Copyright Office issued a rulemaking notice Thursday that would allow an author, claimant to a copyright or representative to ask the CO to remove “extraneous and unnecessary” personally identifiable information from online versions of their copyright's application. PII that would be eligible for removal includes driver's license numbers, Social Security numbers, banking information and credit card information, the CO said in the Federal Register. The CO would retain the extraneous PII in offline and hard-copy versions. The new rule would codify an existing CO practice of deleting extraneous PII on request, the office said. The CO hasn't charged a fee for removing extraneous PII, but would begin to impose a $130 fee for such requests under the proposed rule. Requests for reconsideration of previously denied PII removal requests will cost $60, the CO said. The NPRM wouldn't permit removal of an author's or claimant's name because the CO is required to preserve non-extraneous information as a matter of public record, the office said. Anonymous and pseudonymous works are covered by copyright for 95 years after the work's original publication or 120 years after the work's year of creation. Works published under the author's real name are covered under copyright until 70 years after the author's death. Extraneous PII began appearing more frequently online by 2007 as third parties began “harvesting” information collected via the CO's online registration system and then posting that information on “alternative” websites, the CO said. Comments are due Oct. 17.

Songwriters of North America led the filing Tuesday of a lawsuit against DOJ over the Antitrust Division's controversial decision in its review of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc. consent decrees, as expected (see 1608040066). SONA sued on behalf of songwriters Michelle Lewis, Tom Kelly and Pam Sheyne. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., also targets Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Antitrust head Renata Hesse. It follows an earlier BMI legal challenge of DOJ's concluding statement in the case and an ASCAP-led lobbying effort in Congress. Language in DOJ's ruling clarifying that the department continues to believe the existing decrees mandate 100 percent licensing is a violation of songwriters' property rights because of the language's negative effect on songwriting partnerships, the songwriters said in the complaint (in Pacer). The language “is an illegitimate assertion of agency power in gross violation of plaintiffs’ due process rights, copyright interests and freedom of contacts, and needs to be set aside,” the complaint said. DOJ didn't comment Wednesday.

Customs and Border Protection copyright protection during pendency of a copyright owner's application with the Copyright Office (see 1608250024) will last nine months, CBP said. There's also potential for a single additional 90-day extension, said a Monday news release. The new policy is a result of the customs reauthorization law.

Sentinel Worldwide CEO Steve Tepp criticized Public Knowledge's report claiming the Copyright Office's recent rulemakings and policy recommendations exhibit a pro-rightsholder bias at the expense of consumers. The PK report, released last week (see 1609080084), is an “unprecedented and unfounded” attack on the CO “in a transparent bid to bully, berate, and discredit [the CO] in furtherance of the drastic policy goals PK has failed to achieve for decades,” Tepp said in a Medium blog post Monday. “PK has led a relentless campaign that portrays reasonable policy differences as evidence of impropriety.” Tepp is a former CO senior counsel-policy and international affairs. PK criticizes the CO because of recent instances in which the federal government didn't follow the office's policy recommendations, but “there are also many examples where courts accepted and even relied on [the CO's] analysis, sometimes in opposition to the assertion of copyright protection and sometimes in support of it,” Tepp said. “Even PK relies on the judgement of [the CO] when it suits their purposes.” PK's “two dimensional 'Us vs. Them' approach reflects a lack of sophistication that, in itself, indicates that the organization is unqualified to judge the performance of” the CO, Tepp said. “On any given day the Copyright Office is confronted with the differing and often competing perspectives of a rainbow of participants in the copyright system.” The "moral outrage directed at our report is astonishing," a PK spokeswoman said. "Our report does not impugn the integrity of individual [CO] staff. Regulatory capture is a widely recognized risk for government agencies. Examining structural capture at the Copyright Office has nothing to do with 'bullying,'" as Tepp claims. "It’s not the role of the office to act as an advocate for any particular stakeholders in contentious debates," the PK spokeswoman said. "Accountability to the larger public interest is critical for any agency."

The European Commission's likely proposal to introduce a pan-EU 20-year ancillary copyright aimed at allowing publishers to claim royalties from news aggregation services that link to their content is part of a pattern of recent EU policy decisions that “create a blockade on information for Europeans that rivals the blockades on information imposed by Communist countries,” said CTA President Gary Shapiro in a Friday blog post. The possible EU ancillary copyright was outlined in leaked EC documents on the commission's larger EU copyright law revamp proposal, which is expected to be introduced this month (see 1608290062). The EC may roll out its copyright revamp proposal as soon as this week, an industry lobbyist told us. The ancillary copyright proposal, along with the EU's demand for $14.5 billion in retroactive taxes from Apple and the EU's “right to be forgotten” law, “increasingly restrict access to information,” Shapiro said. “They are also dangerous moves for a government to make as they parallel controls and access to information imposed by totalitarian societies.” The recent dearth of new tech startups in the EU is already “a source of embarrassment and concern,” but the ancillary copyright “will hasten the exodus of promising European tech companies to Silicon Valley and other locales more open to the access to information the internet encourages,” Shapiro said. He urged companies to consider a “blackout day” of European websites similar to the one used in 2012 to protest the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act. “Hopefully, it won't come down to engaging angry European citizens,” Shapiro said. “Cooler heads should withdraw or modify these wrongheaded policies.”

Sky joined HEVC Advance as a licensee, the H.265 patent pool said in a Thursday announcement. Sky promised the U.K.’s “most comprehensive” Ultra HD service on Sky Q Silver when it launched the service in mid-August (see 1607140028), and Sky Deutschland recently announced plans to debut two exclusive Ultra HD sports channels this fall (see 1608220001). Sky becomes HEVC Advance’s third known licensee, after Strong TV and Warner Bros. Entertainment, which also joined in June as a licensor (see 1606280012).

The Copyright Office said it's changed its deadline for parties to submit requests for reconsideration of previously denied copyright applications, so a party must have its reconsideration request postmarked by the deadline -- three months after the CO refused to grant the most recent copyright application. Refused applicants previously needed to ensure their reconsideration request made it to the CO before the three-month deadline. The rule took effect Friday and isn't subject to being initially noticed as a proposed rulemaking because the rule change doesn't affect how parties present themselves to the CO, said a notice in the Federal Register. The CO said it's adopting the deadline rule change because it “can be difficult to predict how long it will take for a reconsideration request to be received by the [CO], particularly given security screening related delays." A change to the “postal” deadline rule that covers “requests for reconsideration delivered by the United States Postal Service or dispatched by a commercial carrier, courier, or messenger” will “offer applicants greater certainty while continuing to ensure that appeals are considered in a timely fashion,” the CO said. The rule covers only reconsideration requests postmarked after Friday, the CO said.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has put together a group of 14 academic, civil liberties, law enforcement, privacy and technology experts to study government encryption and surveillance. In a summary about the 12-month project, the National Academies said the group will examine tradeoffs in mechanisms for giving government "access to the plaintext version of encrypted information." The study will include identifying alternative ways government can get such information and seek ways to measure risks weighed against potential law enforcement and intelligence benefits. "The study will not seek to answer the question of whether access mechanisms should be required but rather will provide an authoritative analysis of options and tradeoffs," it said Wednesday. Chaired by Indiana University law professor Fred Cate, the group includes Scott Charney, Microsoft vice president-trustworthy computing group; David Kris, general counsel of Intellectual Venture; David Hoffman, Intel director-security policy and global privacy officer; Worcester Polytechnic Institute cybersecurity professor Susan Landau; Richard Littlehale, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation special agent; Crowell & Moring privacy and cybersecurity attorney Harvey Rishikof; and Google software engineer Peter Weinberger. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the National Science Foundation sponsored the project.