Sentinel Worldwide CEO Blasts PK's CO Bias Report

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."