Regan A. Smith Named General Counsel
Issue No. 719 - May 29, 2018
Acting Register of Copyrights Karyn A. Temple today announced that Regan A. Smith will serve as General Counsel and Associate Register of Copyrights at the United States Copyright Office, effective May 27, 2018. Smith has served as deputy general counsel since December 2016. She succeeds Sarang (Sy) Damle, who is leaving the Copyright Office for private practice.
“Regan has taken on steadily increasing leadership roles within the Copyright Office since she began in 2014," stated Temple. "During that time, her keen insight and experience on a wide variety of complex copyright policy and legal issues have proven invaluable. She will be a tremendous asset to the Office in her new role.”
While serving as deputy general counsel, Smith shared responsibility for managing the department and handled an extensive portfolio of litigation, regulatory, and policy matters. She helped promulgate numerous updates to the Office’s regulations and administrative practices and provided frequent advice to the Acting Register, congressional offices, and others regarding music licensing, statutory licenses for cable and satellite operators, and other complex areas of copyright law. Smith also co-led the Office’s recent policy study on section 1201 of the DMCA and chaired the seventh triennial section 1201 rulemaking roundtable hearings earlier this year.
Smith joined the Copyright Office in 2014 as assistant general counsel, and served as associate general counsel from 2015 to 2016. Before that, she spent several years in private practice, where she represented a variety of clients in matters concerning copyright, technology, media, and related intellectual property issues. Smith is also a former fellow and pro bono attorney for a Chicago-based lawyers for the arts organization.
Smith earned her JD from Harvard Law School, where she was an executive editor of the Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. She has a BA in philosophy and political science from the University of Michigan. Prior to attending law school, Smith was an executive at a venture focused on film, theatrical, and technology projects.