I don't really understand the hypothetical problems here. "The copyright office head would be a presidential appointee, which could make the copyright office more political". I mean, I guess? Are people worried they're going to start selectively enforcing copyright law? But they don't enforce copyright law right now...
It’s not hypothetical at all. The FCC is currently being used for political attacks: https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/28/media/abc-fcc-disney-licenses...
Those who are under attack happen to also be the biggest copyrighter holders, so this would open up a new avenue of attack.
It's not hypothetical nor an unintended consequence. Most likely this is the point
> Those who are under attack happen to also be the biggest copyrighter holders, so this would open up a new avenue of attack.
Don't threaten me with a good time
It's really hard for me to feel sorry for Disney here. Is it possible for both sides to lose a lawsuit?
It's not about feeling bad for Disney. Disney is tremendously powerful, so if the federal government can coerce them to do whatever the federal government wants, that has massive widespread effects for everyone. It creates an environment in which powerful corporations are expected to act as political enforcers, creating a monoculture of ideas and suppressing dissent.
Conversely you're already not dealing with that, so the letter and spirit of the law are both being ignored and the American voter doesn't care.
> the American voter doesn't care.
The American voter doesn't know because copyright misuse and malfeasance is on a long list of public-impacting topics that news orgs have rigorously ignored for generations.
>Are people worried they're going to start selectively enforcing copyright law?
Yes. Not only that, but to grant copyright protection only to those that are allied with/loyal to/bribe the current administration.
This would have massive, far reaching effects.
> Are people worried they're going to start selectively enforcing copyright law?
Yes.
Never gotten any emails from lawyers, I see.
Copyright laws are heavily enforced, only selectively.
Yes, so what this does is centralized that selective enforcement directly under politicized control, so that it can be weaponized against political enemies.
Are you kidding? If there’s something in there they don’t like I don’t put it past this administration to break it internally and then make a case for shutting it down. This whole thing sounds very similar to the postal service situation…
They will break the system and use it for their friends. No way they are shutting it down. There is way too much money to be made in selective enforcement.
It's not about money as such, it's about political control and suppressing dissent. All of that is a means to an end for a small number of rich people becoming even richer, yes, but it's part of the bigger picture rather than some isolated corruption move. Although I assume it will be understood that you can make your copyright problems go away by posting a generous donation to some Trump-aligned charitable foundation.
> Are you kidding? If there’s something in there they don’t like I don’t put it past this administration to break it internally and then make a case for shutting it down.
Might be a win? The copyright system is one of the major suspects for why US industry ended up crippled and replaced by Asian labour refusing to respect US IP laws to their significant advantage. To say nothing of the corrosive influence on culture of locking down music and stories. The biggest IP success in the last 50 years seems to have been Open Source because they built a framework inside the copyright system to achieve the opposite outcome and build a thriving industry despite the lawyers trying to encourage them in alternative directions.
The people defending the copyright system should have to keep making their case until they come up with something persuasive for how they're helping.
Tongue in cheek, but the copyright system should only last for 12 years, with one straightforward renewal, without specific reauthorization. Just like copyright in works, in my opinion
> The copyright system is one of the major suspects for why US industry ended up crippled and replaced by Asian labour refusing to respect US IP laws to their significant advantage.
Expand on this.
Wasn't it instead our desire to be the world's reserve currency and rely on cheap imports? You can't be both a net exporter and the world's top reserve currency.
You have to run trade deficits if you want to export dollars.
It comes down to comparative advantages more than anything else and the US raising the cost (in some sense outright banning) people from deploying good ideas in an industrial way seems like it'd be a significant comparative disadvantage to attracting investment. And a much bigger deal than the practical reality that the US imports more than it exports.
Maintaining an import-dependent economy might be a factor, economies are complicated. But there isn't a fundamental reason that taking in more stuff than gets exported should mean that Asia has to be more successful. If anything, a country in a position to import more than it exports should be seeing big jumps in living standards, rather the gains going to a country notionally taking the bad end of the bargain. And there are some easy resolutions to being a net importer and while having a strong industrial economy - import raw materials, make stuff that isn't for export as an example.
I mean, I agree with your general point that copyright might need to be reconsidered, but this doesn't seem like an attempt to reconsider it. It's rather transparently enabling further cronyism.