Slashdot Mirror
CNET Interviews Rep. Boucher
Eliot Van Buskirk writes "I interviewed Congressman Rick Boucher about the DMCA, copy-protected CDs, free speech, and the effects of RIAA/MPAA lobbying both in the U.S. and abroad. The transcript is available in the MP3 Insider column, and also as a downloadable MP3 , available under the EFF's Open Audio License, meaning that you can put it in your file sharing directory's upload folder completely legally. This is sort of an experiment. Boucher might be the leading defender in Washington of our right to Fair Use, so I figure it makes sense for the interview to spread around the P2P networks." Boucher's one of the smart ones.
Maybe geeks should be more activists in elections and campaign vigorously for politicians who have positive views about rights in the digital age.
We cannot expect to have them all but doing our share would give them a better chance of being elected. We can whine but unless we do our share in getting them elected we will will always be on the losing end.
Return the bells of Balangiga.
It is inappropriate for the government to establish technical standards to be applied to digital media. The government is not a very good standards-developing body.
Absolutely. Why leave the technical specifications of standards to a group of people who largely do not have a clue to the technology involved?
I never understood why the government gets involved in these technical matters at all.
I am the evil aardvark!
Why do I get the feeling that in this case, "Boucher's one of the smart ones" is really just a synonym for "Boucher Agrees with Me."
And I have very serious problems with punishing the technology. And that is precisely what the DMCA seeks to do. We should punish people who engage in acts of piracy. We should not punish the technology which can be used for infringing purposes but also for substantial noninfringing purposes. Finally a man that understands that! With all of the talk about digital rights management stuff coming out of washington and MPAA/RIAA it is a refreshing change of pace to see at least one person in a place of authority with a little intelligence.
I've always wondered why it was that we've let Congress decide on technological standards, when we already have a government body chartered to do just that.
The National Institute for Standards and Technology has done a fair job in the past of qualifying and quantifying standards in the past, why aren't we using them now? I don't believe that we need to regulate standards in this case at this time, but if others feel so inclined, then why aren't we, the voters, telling Congress to do their jobs?
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Presumeably Mr. Boucher is refering to upcoming HDTV encryption. I do agree that we need to take some steps to assure that material which is, for example, broadcast across digital-television equipment should be protected in such a way as to disallow unauthorized copying and disallow uploading to the Internet. I actually endorse the idea of doing that. I wonder if he knows that this could render thousands of pieces of HDTV equipment nationwide obsolete, icluding TVs and set top boxes, that were not built with the new standard. Don't jump on this guy's boat too fast. It may be tempting to hear someone in Congress saying some things we want to hear, but we have to be careful. There is always the chance that he doesn't understand the reprecussions of the proposed standard.
sPh
I do agree that we need to take some steps to assure that material which is, for example, broadcast across digital-television equipment should be protected in such a way as to disallow unauthorized copying and disallow uploading to the Internet.
This is interesting. Boucher does seem to be very clueful, but how in the heck can he say all of these things about being pro-fair use and then say something like this?
What, exactly, are they planning on doing to prevent this? There is no way to "disallow uploading to the Internet" without something like the CBDTPA. Everyone who owns a copyright would like to "disallow unauthorized copying" why is digital television different? Are routers supposed to be intellegent enough to know that you're uploading a "Friends" episode? What if I digitize a VCR recording and upload that, do we need to prevent that too?
I can only imagine what he means by this is more complex than he's letting on. OTOH It's discouraging for me to see this coming from our side of the fence. The whole problem with "digital rights management" is that it threatens to turn our society into some sort of copyright police state.
You can't have it both ways, it's either allowing technology to run its course and people to generally obey the law or you have to regulate everything. Regulating everything is distasteful, if not entirely unrealistic. What's worse is that it will prevent above the board people (e.g. libraries) from doing what just about anyone will be able to do covertly (with black market equipment and so forth).
"Boucher's one of the smart ones".
Personally, I believe this editorial comment reflects a common and popular myth in Slashdot folklore. I believe there is a tendency to assosciate a politicians' intelligence with his or her stance on issues. This myth strikes to the heart of a fundamnetal misunderstanding of how our political system works.
When a Congressperson is interviewed, they speak the words that they believe will win them the most soft money contributions. Being intelligent does not make one moral, in fact many very intelligent people disagree with the viewpoints of the Slashdot audience. This does make them stupid. Senator Hollings is probably very intelligent. He may or may not believe that what Hollywood orders him to do is good. But by representing Disney he is ensuring a rich flow of political lifeblood: soft money. Soft money that can overpower and drown out a hundred thousand screaming geeks that society has already marginalized into triviality.
Personally I'd love to know what Boucher's plans for financing his re-election campaign are, and who's funding his current viewpoint. If he's actually speaking from the heart, then he may actually be one of the stupid ones.