From The Washington Post:
Music artists are reacting with outrage at the dismissal of the head of the U.S. Copyright Office, calling the move an aggressive attack that is part of a larger effort to erode their creative rights and to bolster advocates of free content.
“This is a major affront to copyright,” said songwriter and music publisher Dean Kay. “Google seems to be taking over the world — and politics. . . . Their major position is to allow themselves to use copyright material without remuneration. If the Copyright Office head is toeing the Google line, creators are going to get hurt.”
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Singer Don Henley said Pallante’s ouster was “an enormous blow” to artists. “She was a champion of copyright and stood up for the creative community, which is one of the things that got her fired,” he said.
Although personnel changes are not uncommon when a new leader comes in, many in the creative industries interpret Hayden’s move — made six weeks after she took office — as proof of her anti-copyright bias. They say Hayden’s library background aligns her with Google, which owns YouTube, the source of many claims of copyright infringement.
“The librarian wants free content, and the copyright office is there to protect creators of content. They are diametrically opposed ideologies,” Henley said. Hayden, he added, “has a long track record of being an activist librarian who is anti-copyright and a librarian who worked at places funded by Google.”
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