Marybeth Peters: Renaissance Woman of Copyright; New York City Bar Association Podcasts, December 13, 2023

  New York City Bar Association Podcasts; Marybeth Peters: Renaissance Woman of Copyright

"Lawyer. Leader. Public Servant. Trailblazer. Friend.

Marybeth Peters, the second-longest serving Register of Copyrights (1994 - 2010), died on September 29, 2022, in Washington, D.C., at the age of 83. With her passing, Register Peters left behind a lasting and far-reaching legacy in her storied 40-plus year career as a distinguished attorney, respected copyright law expert, and the director of the U.S. Copyright Office, where she helped shape and implement critical new laws, including the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, and the Uruguay Round Agreements Act among others. In addition, Register Peters was remembered as a mentor, teacher, and friend who touched the lives of everyone around her with grace and her unforgettable laugh.

Presented by the New York City Bar Copyright and Literary Property Committee, committee member Theodora Fleurant, a trademark attorney based in New York City, and Jose Landivar, an Associate at Coates IP, lead an unforgettable series of conversations with some of the people closest to Register Peters to look back on her life and legacy, including:

•	Shira Perlmutter, the current Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office
•	Maria Pallante, President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers who formerly served as the 12th Register of Copyrights
•	Richard Dannay, Counsel at Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, P.C.
•	Eric Schwartz, Partner at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP, and former Acting General Counsel and Senior Legal Advisor to the Register of Copyrights
•	David Carson, current Copyright Office Claims Officer who, formerly served as head of the Copyright Policy Team in the Office of Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and as General Counsel of the U.S. Copyright Office

This podcast paints a fascinating portrait of a leading U.S. and international copyright law expert. It seeks to inspire listeners with lessons in leadership, courage, innovation, and dedicated public service.

This podcast would not have been possible without the support of the U.S. Copyright Office (https://www.copyright.gov/) and audio provided by the Copyright Clearance Center.

Photo: Courtesy of the U.S. Copyright Office.

Access a transcript of this episode here: https://bityl.co/MvSf"

Barbara Ringer’s Legacy of Fighting for Equity at the Copyright Office: An Interview with Amanda Levendowski; Library of Congress, November 19, 2021

 Steve Andreadis, Library of Congress ; Barbara Ringer’s Legacy of Fighting for Equity at the Copyright Office: An Interview with Amanda Levendowski

"Forty-eight years ago today, November 19, Barbara Ringer was appointed the Copyright Office’s first female Register of Copyrights. She spent her career fighting for equity within the Office and beyond and led the way for the four women who have since served in the role. In 1995, the Library of Congress awarded Ringer its Distinguished Service Award in recognition of her lifetime contributions to the field of copyright and the Library.

To commemorate Ringer’s legacy, I spoke with Amanda Levendowski, associate professor of law at Georgetown Law and the founding director of the Intellectual Property and Information Policy (iPIP) Clinic, about the inspiration Barbara Ringer provides to those in the field of copyright. Through articles and events, Levendowski has shined a light on a visionary leader who continues to inspire current and future intellectual property professionals."

Illuminating the Profession: Women in Copyright; Landslide, A Publication of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law, March/April 2018

[Kip Currier: The new issue of Landslide magazine, a digital and print publication of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the American Bar Association (ABA), has a fascinating interview of 6 female copyright experts. Ralph Oman, a former U.S. Register of Copyrights (1985-1993) and a copyright law professor at George Washington University Law School, poses intriguing copyright-related questions, of interest to copyright wonks and would-be copyright practitioners: from the future of copyright in the digital age, to copyright cases that were decided “right” and those decided “wrong”, to “the number one legislative copyright priority in this Congress?”, and more.

Unfortunately, the full article is only available for members of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law. In my view, this article could and should have been made freely accessible future  to reach a much wider audience and showcase these outstanding and inspiring role models and leaders in copyright law, representing a wide range of sectors and copyright areas. [C'mon ABA, I get that you want to have a paywall for the IP Section of ABA, but how about providing some limited access or a few articles from an issue. The article's called "Illuminating the Profession: Women in Copyright", so why not further that aim by making the article accessible to more people and attracting more women to IP careers?!]

The six copyright luminaries are, in alphabetical order, June Besek; Dale Cendali; Mary Rasenberger; Kate Spelman; Francine Ward; Nancy Wolff. ]

"COVER STORY

Illuminating the Profession: Women in CopyrightBy Ralph Oman

Meet the copyright stars! Get to know some of the outstanding attorneys who practice copyright law."

Murder (or not) at the Library of Congress?; Washington Post, 10/31/16

David Post, Washington Post; Murder (or not) at the Library of Congress? :

"In any complex organization, it’s crucial for senior management to be unified in their understanding of the organization’s mission and how that mission can best be accomplished. It seems fairly basic that any new leader is entitled to expect, at a minimum, that all of the members of her management team actually want to be part of the organization — that they see a future for themselves and their staffs in the organization. In the academic world, where I spend most of my time, everyone expects a new university president to make major, senior-level personnel changes when he or she takes the helm. Sometimes those changes come quickly — as when there is a sharp divergence of views on a matter central to the shape and identity of the institution. Sometimes they come more slowly, as time reveals more subtle conflicts or incongruities between a given administrator’s approach to his or her job and the new president’s vision for the future of the institution. Always, however, personnel changes come. They’re a normal and healthy part of institutional evolution, even if they produce some short-term disorientation.

We’ll likely never know the details of Pallante’s departure from her job. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that the logical explanation is probably the actual one."

Copyright Register: IT outage shows why agency must modernize; FedScoop.com, 11/30/15

Whitney Blair Wyckoff, FedScoop.com; Copyright Register: IT outage shows why agency must modernize:

"U.S. Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante still grimaces at the mention of a major IT outage that struck her agency this summer.

What started as routine data center maintenance shuttered critical Library of Congress IT systems — including those at the Copyright Office — for nine days. Pallante said it forced her staff, who were unable to fix the problems directly, to field angry calls from customers unable to register their songs, books or other creative works online.

“This is an illustration of the fact that my IT, and my databases, are in the hands of people who are not statutorily responsible for that information,” she told FedScoop, speaking in a Copyright Office conference room lined with the portraits of past registers. She added, "I just really feel that people who work on Copyright Office IT should be in the Copyright Office, in the mission, working side by side with the other experts."

It’s a point alluded to in the Copyright Office's five-year strategic modernization plan, finalized and released Tuesday. The 65-page document includes overarching goals that span from building a robust and flexible technology enterprise to recruiting a diverse workforce. But woven into the report is the need to tailor the office's technology to the needs of the people it serves.

“I think the main message of this is that the Copyright Office has to be directly involved in technology — for one, we can’t administer the law without having control of tools to allow us to do that,” said Pallante, who spent nearly 10 years as intellectual property counsel and director of the licensing group at the Guggenheim Museums before coming to her current job in 2011."