Bruno Mars & Bruce Springsteen are latest artists to sign DMCA reform letter
An open letter to Congress calling for changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has now garnered signatures from over 500 artists -- including new additions Bruce Springsteen and Bruno Mars -- and more than 20 companies, according to the letter's organizer, prominent music manager Irving Azoff.
At the time of its release on Monday, 180 performers and songwriters -- including Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, Carole King and Vince Staples -- had signed the letter, which ran in DC publications Politico, The Hill, and Roll Call and called for "sensible reform" of the DMCA, which was passed in 1996. Specifically, Azoff and co. take issue with the fact that the law currently gives YouTube a "safe harbor" from copyright infringement for content uploaded by users and are criticizing the process of issuing takedown notices for content that artists do not want uploaded.
Azoff announced on Twitter Wednesday that the number of co-signs is now much higher.
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"This is historic," he wrote.
He went on to slam YouTube's business model, saying that labels only reached agreements with them "out of desperation."
He also bashed YouTube for allowing its own programs, like YouTube Red shows, to be kept behind a paywall but fails to keep leaks off of the site.
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In May, Azoff aired similar grievances in an open letter in which he suggested that musicians should be able to opt out of YouTube. YouTube has consistently defended the effectiveness of its Content ID system, which allows artists to track content that matches their own work. In his letter, Azoff called the system "meaningless when YouTube continues to hide behind the 'safe harbor' provisions of the DMCA."
In March, Katy Perry and Christina Aguilera and 55 other artists signed a similar letter that compared the takedown process to "a game of Whack-a-Mole."
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