The Copyright Alliance is a nonprofit, nonpartisan 501(c)(4) organization representing artistic creators across a broad range of copyright disciplines.
The Copyright Alliance's institutional members include more than sixty trade organizations, associations, unions, companies, and guilds, that represent millions of individual creators. The Copyright Alliance also directly collaborates with and represents more than twenty three thousand creative individuals and small businesses. The creative industries represented include writers, composers, recording artists, journalists, documentarians, filmmakers, graphic artists, visual artists, photographers, authors, software developers, and numerous other genres.
History
At its launch in May 2007, the Copyright Alliance was founded by four Board members, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Broadcast Music, Inc., the Motion Picture Association of America (now called Motion Picture Association), and Universal. It was initially created and masterminded by President and CEO of the Motion Picture Association Jack Valenti. Music artists Steve Cropper and Lamont Dozier attended the launch, which included a membership of 29 organizations that represented 11 million creative workers, including the Association of American Publishers, Microsoft, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Viacom, and Disney.
The launch of the Copyright Alliance was supported by U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), Ranking Representative Howard Coble (R-NC), Representative Howard Berman (D-CA), and members of the United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet. In speaking of being inspired by the late Jack Valenti, Representative Berman noted that "the constant assaults on copyright law" resulted in the Copyright Alliance’s origin, and he called the organization’s launch "a tremendous idea.”
The Copyright Alliance was launched in opposition to the Digital Freedom Campaign, formed the previous October, whose members include the Consumer Electronics Association, Public Knowledge, and the Electronic Freedom Foundation.
Patrick Ross served as executive director of the Copyright Alliance for four years until he was succeeded by Sandra Aistars on December 20, 2010. Prior to taking the position, Aistars was Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Time Warner. On September 15, 2015, it was announced that Keith Kupferschmid would succeed Sandra Aistars as CEO of the Copyright Alliance. Kupferschmid previously served as General Counsel and Senior Vice President for Intellectual Property at the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA).
Members
As of March 2022, the Copyright Alliance lists 60 organizations as organization members.