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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.
Boucher's PowerRanking is 77 of 437 in Congress. Semi-high, but not high enough to make a difference without help...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Boucher seems to have his values in the right place, but no where does he say anything for the right of the consumer to make his own music, movies, or software.
if a standard is reached by private industry that is endorsed by consumer groups, what assurences do people have that they will have the ability to use their home grown media and programs?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
that's the price you risk paying when you are an early adopter of a technology in which the standards aren't even close to being agreed upon.
... even $0 ... when they discover their $100 VCR does what that expensive equipment cannot), the change these fools are demanding is simply going to kill the medium dead, a la consumer DAT audio tape.
First, I'm not an early adopter, so I have no vested interest beyond that of a potential consumer who might consider purchasing HDTV equipment in the future, provided it hasn't been crippled to disallow recording and archiving material I wish to put in my video library, like I've been doing with my VCR sinc e the 80s.
The standard in the United States was agreed upon and legislated into law. Not everyone agreed, that is true, but not everyone ever agrees on any standard. As with virtually every other standard in place a consensus was reached and the appropriate standard stamped out.
Now the copyright cartels of Hollywood want to rewrite the standard specifically to shortchange consumers and deny them the capabilities with which they've grown accustomed, such as the ability to tape on-air broadcasts and either time-shift the show or stick the tape on the shelf as part of a collection, to watch again a few years later (or quite possibly never again, as with most 'home videos').
Having an agreed upon, legislated standard changed midstream, after consumer hardware is shipping, is not "a risk early adopters take," and if industries are going to be allowed to begin making such the order of the day you can kiss the entire phenominon of early adoption goodbye. There was a social, and in some facets legal, contract in place that people were buying equipment that complies with the HDTV standard as laid out by the FCC. Make all that equipment obsolete and you stand a good chance of killing the entire HDTV standard (in whatever form) dead, irrespective of whatever other merits it may have, and irrespective of how draconian the FCC becomes in trying to push it.
No one with a shred of sense is going to spend a sizeable amount of money a second time to chase a standard that should not have been changed in the first place, and there aren't enough people with the pocketbook or desire to sustain a second wave of early adopters needed to finance such a change.
Unless Hollywood is going to stard demanding government subsidized distribution of copy crippled HDTV equipment to the masses (who are unlikely to be interested at any price
Which may, in fact, be their goal to begin with, so they can start offering 10 channels of lowres, lowgrade tripe on the public airwaves congress criminally stole from us and granted them as part of this whole move to HDTV to begin with.
Don't get me wrong, I lust after a good 1920x1080 image as much as the next person, but the price they are demanding in terms of relinquishing my rights as an A/V consumer just simply aren't worth it, by orders of magnitude. Nor to is the price of the equipment they are about to make obsolete, but that's another story.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
He's my Congressman but I never voted for him. He's OK. Very pro-gun and good on internet issues. He was asked to lead the Clinton defense in the Senate and shot it down because he had to do his laundry. That said a lot about the guy.
I would vote for him if he didn't CREAM his opponents every year. Running against this guy is an invitation to lose.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem