Derek Khanna

Political experience

Khanna worked for Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) from 2010-2012. He describes his experience working on technology issues and the SOPA/PIPA protest in a chapter he contributed to the book "Hacking Politics."

In 2012 he worked for the House Republican Study Committee (RSC) where he managed technology, defense and government oversight policy issues. During his time with the RSC he was asked to write a policy brief on copyright reform. On November 16, 2012 the RSC released an official report on copyright reform entitled "Three Myths about Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix it." The report was independently confirmed as being vetted and approved by the RSC. However, within 24 hours the RSC received push-back from pro-copyright lobbying groups and they took the report off-line.

The RSC report was strongly in favor of copyright, as enabled by the Constitution, but against excesses within the current system with a scope and length of copyright that deviates from the Constitution and the Founders' original intent. "Today’s legal regime of copyright law is seen by many as a form of corporate welfare that hurts innovation and hurts the consumer. It is a system that picks winners and losers. . ."

The report describes numerous areas of innovation, both in technology and new content creation, that have been stifled through excessive copyright. The RSC report concluded with:

To be clear, there is a legitimate purpose to copyright. .. Copyright ensures that there is sufficient incentive for content producers to develop content, but there is a steep cost to our unusually long copyright period that Congress has now created. Our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution with explicit instructions on this matter for a limited copyright – not an indefinite monopoly. . .It is difficult to argue that the life of the author plus 70 years is an appropriate copyright term for this purpose – what possible new incentive was given to the content producer for content protection for a term of life plus 70 years vs. a term of life plus 50 years? Where we have reached a point of such diminishing returns we must be especially aware of the known and predictable impact upon the greater market that these policies have held. . .

The withdrawn memo, under the Streisand effect, quickly went viral online, becoming a top hit on Twitter and reddit, where it was supported and endorsed by entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and policy experts, such as Virginia Postrel, as a collection of logical reforms to existing copyright law that would spur innovation and new content creation.

Numerous conservative organizations and individuals endorsed the report and its reforms. Among them: American Conservative Union put it on their website, RedState came out in favor of the reforms, Professor Randy Barnett wrote a blog post in favor, Patrick Ruffini and Congressman [Darrell Issa] tweeted in favor, Professor Glenn Reynolds wrote in favor at his Instapundit blog, an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal also endorsed and the American Conservative Magazine supported the reforms. The American Conservative Magazine posted an article as a response, "Do Any Conservatives Strongly Support Today's Copyright Regime?" when they were unable to find any conservative organizations that supported the status quo. Within a month the Mercatus Center released their own compilation work "Copyright Unbalanced" that also supported similar reforms to copyright law.

In 2014, the Young Guns Network, an organization founded by previous House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, current House Majority Leader Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Congressman Paul Ryan, released their "Room to Grow Report." In a section written by American Enterprise Institute scholar James Pethokoukis, the report specifically called for copyright reform and cited the House Republican Study Committee report as a blueprint.

"America’s founders thought that innovators needed to earn an economic return for their efforts and be protected temporarily from imitation. But over the years, copyright and patent law has evolved into cronyist protection of the revenue streams of powerful incumbent companies—a type of regulation that hampers innovation and entrepreneurship. . . At the nation’s birth, copyright was granted for a term of fourteen years with the option for one additional term of equal length. So the traditional American approach is one of short copyright terms. Today, thanks to effective entertainment industry lobbying, copyright exists for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years."

Derek wrote a reflection on the RSC Report in Cardozo Law Review: Arts & Entertainment Law Journal. Khanna's perspective on copyright reform has been consistent with other work by conservative scholars including Judge Richard Posner, Steve Forbes, Phyllis Schlafly, Milton Friedman, and Ronald H. Coase. The report also received widespread support beyond conservative circles from Electronic Freedom Foundation and Public Knowledge. Khanna's time on Capitol Hill ended in January 2013.

Other experiences

Since January 2013, Khanna has been a fellow with Yale Law's Information Society Project where he has published prolifically on intellectual property and innovation policies. He has spoken widely, including at the International Consumer Electronics Show, South by Southwest, Conservative Political Action Conference, Princeton University, Cardozo School of Law, and the Harvard Berkman Center. In 2013, Derek participated in Washington Post's first Wonkblog Debate with Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein and Sarah Binder.

Khanna has continued much of his work on innovation policy and copyright reform, from one of his articles on copyright reform:

We can craft a system of copyright that compensates rights holders and incentivizes innovation for start-ups and new artists. It is not an either or proposition. But we’ll only get a balanced copyright system if Congress hears from a broad range of voices. It can’t just be special interests controlling the debate, writing the amendments in backrooms, and writing big checks to members of Congress.

On January 27, 2013, Khanna kicked off a national campaign to legalize cellphone unlocking, which has been called by some the "most important change in mobile policy in nine years." A ruling by the Librarian of Congress made cellphone unlocking a federal crime under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Khanna's legal analysis demonstrated how this act could result in jail time of up to five years and $500,000 fine for unlocking one's own device. Khanna teamed up with entrepreneur Sina Khanifar on a White House We The People petition.

From his campaign on cellphone unlocking, "A free society shouldn't have to petition its government every three years to allow access to technologies that are ordinary and commonplace. Innovation cannot depend on begging permission from an unelected bureaucrat every three years." Their campaign quickly went viral online and was supported by the co-creator of the internet Vint Cerf. Within a month their petition reached 114,322 signatures, which was the first petition to reach 100,000 signatures. The White House ultimately came out in favor of cellphone unlocking, and against their own department that had made the technology illegal. As a direct response, Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Jared Polis (D-CO) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced H.R. 1892, The Unlocking Technology Act of 2013, which has been endorsed by National College Republicans, Tea Party Nation, R Street and FreedomWorks. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, and Mercatus scholars.

Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) also introduced his own legislation, H.R. 1123, the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act. On June 6, 2013, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on H.R. 1123 and Khanna testified on behalf of the mass-campaign that led to the legislation:

Banning technologies is an extreme step by government, a truly incredible reach of Federal power. . .Our campaign was about actually solving this problem and restoring a free market. . . given the enormous benefits that phone unlocking provides to the consumer, phone unlocking should be made permanently lawful for the consumer to use, industries to develop and marketers to sell.

After the success of the White House petition on cellphone unlocking, Khanna wrote an article in BoingBoing calling this fight merely "the first step towards post-SOPA copyright reform." From the conclusion of the piece:

It’s up to us: was the historic protest against SOPA merely a historical aberration, or was it the beginning of a new historical norm? They had all the chips in SOPA: they had the money, they had the lobbyists, and they had the organization. But we are the trump card — the digital generation — and we won. . . We're putting those special interests on notice. We are here, and we aren’t backing down. There are millions of Americans who believe that we deserve better from our politicians. For those willing to commence the next key battle on copyright reform, this is our call to arms.

On February 25, 2014, the House passed Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act (H.R. 1123) with a vote of 295 to 114.

He now works for The Boston Consulting Group in Miami, Florida.

Reception

Khanna has been called a "wunderkind" for his ideas on innovation and technology policy, New York Times columnist David Brooks has referred to him as a "rising star" in the Republican Party, and Techcrunch has referred to him as a "living martyr against the entertainment and telecommunication lobbies."