Press Releases

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Ranking Member John Conyers (D-Mich.) today announced that the House Judiciary Committee will conduct a listening tour as part of the Committee’s comprehensive copyright review.  The House Judiciary Committee will kick-off the copyright review listening tour with a roundtable discussion in Nashville, Tennessee on September 21st.  The roundtable is expected to include a wide range of professionals from the music industry.  Future roundtable locations will be announced at a later date.

Chairman Goodlatte and Ranking Member Conyers issued the following statement on the upcoming copyright review listening tour.

“America’s copyright industries – movies, television programming, music, books, video games and computer software – and technology sector are vitally important to our national economy.  The House Judiciary Committee’s copyright review is focused on determining whether our copyright laws are still working in the digital age to reward creativity and innovation in order to ensure these crucial industries can thrive. 

“In the coming weeks the House Judiciary Committee will conduct several roundtable discussions to hear directly from the creators and innovators about the challenges they face in their creative field and what changes are needed to ensure U.S. copyright law keeps pace with technological advances.”

Background: Chairman Goodlatte first announced the Judiciary Committee’s intention to undertake a comprehensive review of U.S. copyright law on April 24, 2013, in a speech before the World Intellectual Property Day celebration at the Library of Congress.  As part of the copyright review, the House Judiciary Committee has held 20 hearings which included testimony from 100 witnesses.  On July 22, 2015, Chairman Goodlatte and Ranking Member Conyers announced that Committee staff would issue invitations to all prior witnesses of the Committee’s copyright review hearings to meet with Committee staff and provide additional input on copyright policy issues.  To date nearly 50 meetings have been scheduled and those meetings, which are ongoing, will take several more weeks.