Washington, D.C. – This week, Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) reintroduced the Content Origin Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media Act (COPIED Act) (S.1396), which purports to combat harmful deepfakes by enacting federal transparency guidelines. Re:Create Executive Director Brandon Butler issued the following statement in opposition to this legislation.

“The COPIED Act opens a Pandora’s box of unconstitutional copyright expansion that enables breathtaking new levels of private censorship, letting anyone watermark digital content and sue over its modification for any purpose, not just AI training. The bill eliminates fair use protections and grants eternal, nearly-unlimited control over digital works. It’s a major threat to First Amendment rights and could even allow companies to lock down public domain works permanently,” said Executive Director Brandon Butler. “Despite its alleged purpose, nothing in the bill requires disclosure of media manipulation. We urge lawmakers to see through S. 1396’s smoke and mirrors, and protect Americans’ fair use and First Amendment rights by rejecting this legislation.”

Below is an in-depth look at why Re:Create opposes the COPIED Act.

• The COPIED Act…
  • Dictates how Americans’ everyday digital products and tools work, requiring every kind of digital creative tool, from Google Docs to iOS, to include a hypothetical, TBD watermarking technology 
  • Gives anyone who marks a digital work with this technology the right to sue anyone who digitally alters the work for any reason, with no exception for critique, commentary, teaching, news reporting, or any other fair use. It’s a  “don’t parody me” button that politicians, celebs, and pundits will use to silence critics.
  • Protects digital publishers, not people depicted in deepfake imagery or people deceived by it.
  • Doesn’t require disclosure of use of digital editing technologies, so it’s not really about transparency.
  • Evades review in federal courts, where copyright matters and First Amendment concerns are more routinely considered.
  • Is not limited to authors or copyright holders; anyone can use this watermark to claim a work.
  • Could allow companies like Getty to lock down public domain works permanently.

In support of a pro-innovation, pro-creator, pro-consumer copyright framework, Re:Create urges lawmakers to reject this legislation.