June Newsbreak
In this issue of Newsbreak:
Town Hall Webinar with DMLA’s Board of Directors
Save the Dates
Membership Information
Copyright Corner
Upcoming Industry Events
DMLA Town Hall: From Licensing to Leadership
Join us for a special DMLA Town Hall on Thursday, June 11 at 2:00 PM EDT. as we officially introduce the Digital Media Leadership Alliance and discuss the organization’s evolution from a licensing-focused association to a broader leadership community shaping the future of digital media.
This conversation will bring together past and current Board members to reflect on DMLA’s history, the thinking behind the rebrand, and where the organization is headed next. We’ll discuss the rapidly changing media landscape, the growing intersection of content, technology, AI, rights, and licensing, and how DMLA is evolving to better serve the industry for the next generation.
Save the Dates:
DMLA Legal Town Hall
June 17, 2026 - 2p.m. EDT
Join members of DMLA’s Legal Committee for a town hall on legal issues impacting the digital media industry.
Watch for more information and registration details next week.
Leadership, Innovation & Celebration
DMLA Leadership + AI Summit & 75th Anniversary Celebration
New York City, September 30, 2026
For 75 years, DMLA has helped shape the future of the digital media industry. This September, we invite industry leaders, innovators, and decision-makers to join us in New York City as we celebrate that legacy—and look ahead to what's next.
The afternoon will feature DMLA’s 4th AI Summit with key topics exploring the forces reshaping our industry, including AI, copyright, licensing, content discovery, business transformation, and emerging opportunities. The day will conclude with a special celebration recognizing DMLA's 75th Anniversary and the people and organizations that have helped build our community.
Mark your calendars now. Space will be limited and we will require early registration, so watch for more information soon.
75 Years Behind Us + The Future Ahead.
The next International Digital Media Leadership Conference (IDMLC) will take place in April 2027.
As DMLA continues to evolve and expand its leadership initiatives, IDMLC will remain the premier gathering for professionals involved in content creation, authenticity, copyright, licensing, distribution, technology and business innovation.
We are reimagining the conference experience to create more opportunities for meaningful networking, collaboration, and business development while maintaining the high-caliber educational sessions and thought-provoking discussions that attendees value.
Additional details on dates, location, and programming will be announced in the coming months. If you or anyone on your team would like to be part of the planning committee, or be a sponsor of this great event, please reach out to admin@dmla.org.
**Support DMLA Through Sponsorship**
DMLA's ability to advocate for the industry, provide educational programming, foster meaningful connections, and develop new initiatives depends on the support of both our members and sponsors.
To help keep membership dues affordable while expanding the value and services we provide, DMLA offers several sponsorship opportunities that allow organizations to support the areas most important to them:
Sustaining Sponsors provide ongoing support that helps strengthen the organization's long-term stability and growth.
Advocacy Sponsors help fund DMLA's work on copyright, AI, policy, industry standards, and other issues affecting our community.
Technology Sponsors support the tools, platforms, and technology initiatives that help DMLA serve members more effectively.
Event Sponsors support the overall mission and operations of DMLA.
Sponsorship provides a flexible way for organizations to increase their support of the industry while aligning their investment with their business priorities and areas of interest.
If your company would like to learn more about DMLA sponsorship opportunities, please contact us. Together, we can continue building a stronger future for the digital media industry.
Proud to Be a DMLA Member?
Let your clients and partners know.
Members in good standing are encouraged to display the DMLA logo on their websites, marketing materials, and email signatures as a sign of their commitment to professional standards, industry leadership, and the future of digital media.
Members who would like to gain access the DMLA logos, please reach out to marketing@dmla.org.
DMLA Member’s Directory, Video and Documents libraries
If your company is a member of DMLA in good standing, sign up for access to the member’s area of the website and create a profile. Members gain access to the membership directory, plus the Video and Documents library—great resources for information and trusted networking!
HERE is a video clip from the IDMLC in San Francisco, 2023, where Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights, discusses the history of copyright and the protection of human authorship. The entire session is available to members in the video archive!
All employees from a company member in good standing may sign up and sign on. Reach out to admin@dmla.org for an employee sign up link.
Copyright Corner
Changes to the Copyright Registration Fee Structure
Your voice matters. This is the last chance to participate in a survey on the U.S. Copyright Office proposal to increase registration fees. Your comments could help shape future conversations around copyright registration costs, accessibility, and protections for creators and rights holders. Whether you are a creator, company representative, publisher, legal professional, or copyright stakeholder, we invite you to take a few minutes to share your experience. Your feedback will help provide valuable insight into how registration fees and processes impact the creative ecosystem. Thank you for participating and helping ensure diverse perspectives are represented.
Copyright Scam Alert: Fraudulent Emails Impersonating U.S. Copyright Office Target Creators
The Copyright Alliance is warning creators about a fraudulent email scam impersonating the U.S. Copyright Office. The scam message falsely claims to request information related to an existing copyright registration as part of a “routine federal record verification” process. While the email may appear convincing—even including legitimate registration numbers—it has been confirmed as fraudulent. Creators are advised not to respond to suspicious communications and to contact the U.S. Copyright Office directly through official channels if they have concerns about any messages they receive.
Read the full letter: HERE
Register of Copyrights Testifies Before Senate Judiciary Committee on AI, Piracy, and Copyright Policy
The Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee at an Oversight Hearing of the U.S. Copyright Office. Topics covered included the BLOCK BEARD Act and no-fault injunctions against foreign piracy sites, AI training transparency (including the TRAIN Act and CLEAR Act), the application of fair use to AI training, the impact of Cox v. Sony on DMCA secondary liability, the TRUMP American AI Act framework, VACRA, copyright protection for AI-generated outputs, and the intersection of copyright with right to repair. Register Perlmutter also addressed the Copyright Office's proposed fee schedule, its request for additional appropriations for modernization, the operation of the Copyright Claims Board (CCB) and proposed reforms, and the Office's institutional position within the legislative branch. Members participating in this hearing included Chairman Tillis (R-NC), Ranking Member Schiff (D-CA), and Sens. Blackburn (R-TN), Hirono (D-HI), Welch (D-VT), Coons (D-DE), and Padilla (D-CA).
A written summary of the hearing may be found HERE.
The video of the hearing may be found HERE.
ASTM v. UpCodes is a Troubling Misapplication of Warhol’s Transformative Use Clarifications
by Kevin Madigan, The Copyright Alliance
In early April, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed a denial of a preliminary injunction sought by the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) in its lawsuit against an online platform, UpCodes, over the unauthorized publication of ASTM’s copyrighted standards. Finding that UpCodes’ publication of ASTM’s standards to “enhance public access” to the standards was transformative, the court concluded that it was likely to succeed on the merits of a fair use defense. However, the court’s transformative use analysis makes a critical error by conflating the defendant’s stated objective or “mission” with the actual purpose of the use. The result is a decision that excuses a near identical use as transformative, and despite the Supreme Court’s clear warning against it in Warhol v. Goldsmith, allows that finding to control the entire analysis.
The Secret Weapon Against AI Dominance
By Jacob Noti-Victor and Xiyin Tang
More than 90 lawsuits have been filed by creators against AI companies for copyright infringement. Authors, musicians, visual artists, and news publishers have all accused firms such as OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic of using their copyrighted works to train AI models without permission. (The Atlantic is involved in one such lawsuit, against the AI firm Cohere.) These cases are frequently framed as the defining fight over the future of creative labor and the entertainment industry as a whole. As one of these lawsuits put it, artists are seeking to end “infringement of their rights before their professions are eliminated by a computer program powered entirely by their hard work.”
But the future of creative labor will more likely be decided through a different question within copyright law, one that has received far less attention: To what extent should AI-generated works receive copyright protection at all?
Europe’s Copyright Trap Stalls AI Ambitions
By Oscar Guinea
The debate over copyright and AI is often described as a moral battle: the rights of creators versus the "theft" by big tech. This framing is fundamentally flawed. The US has fair use. Japan and Singapore’s broad, innovation-friendly copyright exceptions privilege AI innovation. In contrast, Europe restricts access to data — with grave risks to its economic future.
The continent’s Copyright Directive grants copyright exceptions for Text and Data Mining but allows rightsholders to exercise the right to opt out. More than half of news publishers already block the main AI web crawlers by using shared standards for robot exclusion.
The consequences of this “data scarcity” are already visible in the widening investment gap between the EU and its global competitors. In 2024, the American private sector invested over €101 billion in AI —roughly 73% of the global total. Europe managed a mere €18 billion. When it comes to Generative AI specifically, the disparity is even more staggering: €27 billion in the US versus just €1.3 billion in the EU.
Interested in DMLA Membership?
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Benefits of Membership
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Committees
AI/Copyright Group
SEO/AISearch Working Group
Coming Industry Events
June 22–26, 2026 - Cannes Lions Int’l - Cannes, France
September 16, 2026 - Footage Marketplace Europe - Paris, France
September 29 - 30 - Visual 1st 2026 - San Francisco, CA
September 30 - DMLA Leadership + AI Summit, New York City
October 1-3 - Footage Fest, New York City
November 10 - 12 - AdobeMax - Miami, FL
Please send us events you would like us to track!
Email marketing@dmla.org