Chairman John Conyers Abolishes US IP Subcommittee

According to CongressDaily, on Wednesday a Judiciary aide informed them that the US subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property will be abolished in the new Congress. The shift will be made towards a full committee level examination of intellectual property matters from now on. The changes will also involve creating a Subcommittee on Courts and Antitrust.

Under the management of Howard Berman, the IP subcommittee’s activity proved to be quite concentrated bringing to the table delicate issues such as ending a long-standing music royalty exemption for AM and FM radio, and making changes to the copyright law that concerns musical tracks, writings, images, videos or other content “whose owners cannot be easily identified”.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers is the one behind this request and he expresssed his wish to keep this level of being active “on IP issues at the full committee level”.