Washington, D.C. – Following U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa’s introduction of The American Copyright Protection Act of 2026, Re:Create Executive Director, Brandon Butler, issued the following statement highlighting concerns about the bill.
“The American Copyright Protection Act of 2026 is anything but American,” said Executive Director Brandon Butler. “By codifying a one-sided legal process modeled on European site-blocking laws, which have been shown to cause widespread censorship, this bill violates American due process, First Amendment rights, and American ingenuity.”
“Forcing infrastructure providers, DNS resolvers, and VPNs to filter internet traffic threatens user privacy and risks catastrophic collateral damage to the open web. This fast-track site-blocking scheme bypasses effective legal channels, undermines the digital ecosystem, invites copyright abuse– disrupting small businesses, nonprofit and internet users across the globe.”
A new Re:Create one-pager highlights studies that show the fallout from similar European site-blocking regimes:
- 510 Benign, non-streaming websites (including a Catholic Convent and telehealth platform) were blocked by Italy’s Piracy Shield
- 320 Days, on average, innocent websites remained blacklisted in Italy, cutting off small businesses from global markets
- 5.8% of the popular internet was blocked by Spain’s system during LaLiga matches, including Harvard University and Greenpeace
Learn more about site-blocking here.
Read Brandon’s op-ed for the Washington Examiner on site-blocking and copyright censorship here.
###
About Re:Create: Re:Create is a coalition comprised of a broad membership of think tanks, advocacy organizations, libraries, technology companies – large and small – that serves as the leading coalition united in the fight for a balanced copyright system that is pro-innovation, pro-creator, and pro-consumer. Not every member of the Re:Create Coalition necessarily agrees on every issue, but the views we express represent the consensus among the bulk of our membership.