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.
"However, I'm not in the habit of downloading music from the Web." - I mean seriously - even if they did do this do you think they'd admit it in an interview?
Video Game cheats, hints a
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.
Please join me in welcoming Rep Boucher to the fold. To quote former President Kennedy regarding Pinochet: "He may be an asshole, but he's our asshole."
illegitimii non ingravare
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
"B: The effect of that restriction, which was known as the acceptable-use policy, prohibited electronic commerce, and the first Internet-related legislation that I sponsored, which was in 1992, repealed the acceptable-use policy and thereby enabled the Internet to be used for electronic commerce. So I have been involved in Internet-related policy for approximately one decade, and I have been using the Internet myself for almost that period of time. "
So this is the bastard that ruined the internet?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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).
Who was the Senate sponsor of that legislation.
Best Slashdot Co
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!
"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. But I think that should be done in a collaborative process that involves the manufacturers of equipment and also involves the motion-picture studios."
Let them create content and sell it to me, but don't let these greedy bastards control what I can do with it in the privacy of my own home once I've paid for it!
"And like that
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
Ironically, you seem to be guilty of the exact same behavior. You're accusing others of automatically labelling anyone who disagrees. At the same time, you're implying that anyone who negatively moderates your unsubstantiated claims is automatically being narrowminded.
Regardless of whether or not you agree with him, Rep. Boucher comes across as being both extremely well informed and capable of explaining his position. As further evidence, take a look at the interview he did with Slashdot awhile back.
And despite your claims, some of us are capable of differentiating between intelligence and agreement:
Hillary Rosen: Complete idiot; I'm heavily in the pro-copyright camp, yet I still cringe every time I see a quote from her.
Bill Gates: Brilliant businessman; I'm using Linux right now, I love it to death, and I hate some of the shady, monopolisitic bullshit Microsoft has pulled and continues to pull. That doesn't stop me from recognizing that he's been able to make quite a lot of money, even factoring in the additional profitability of illegal behavior.
"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.
To me, passing laws that punish everybody because a few people are pirates would be morally equivalent to wiping the whole population of Afghanistan off the planet to get rid of the terrorists.
Everybody agrees that we must be careful to avoid damage to civilians in our little war on terror. Everybody agrees that hurting civilians is wrong. Why, then, are people willing to tolerate the same sort of strategy when it comes to other issues? Just because it isn't a matter of life or death doesn't make the strategy any less wrong. There's no justification for punishing the innocent along with the guilty.
If Hollings has his way:
Dark Ages (old definition)
1. the period in European history from about a.d. 476 to about 1000.
2. the whole of the Middle Ages, from about a.d. 476 to the Renaissance.
3. (often l.c.) a period or stage marked by repressiveness, a lack of enlightenment or advanced knowledge, etc.
Dark Ages (new definition)
1. the period in World history from about a.d. 2002 to 2100.
2. the whole of the Binary Age, from about a.d. 2000 to the Open Age
3. (often l.c.) a period or stage marked by repressiveness, a lack of enlightenment or advanced knowledge, a lack of advanced knowledge except for those who finance political campaigns.
Hmm.. one thing that kind of bothered me about this interview was that he is in support of protecting television broadcasts. Anybody else see problems with this? I mean, I don't have a problem with HBO doing this. But if I can't record That 70's show, well that just sucks.
Maybe my imagination is a little overactive, but surely these guys would encrypt their shows, forcing me to buy the DVD...
"Derp de derp."
Isn't it a bit ironic that download.com forces users to register their name, email, job function, etc to download this MP3?
Free speech, not a free download...
Rep. Boucher will hold a town meeting at the Blacksburg town hall on Sat June 15, 9:30am. I'll be there to make sure he's aware of MS' habit of extorting our schools with audit threats. Feel free to join in.
Miko O'Sullivan
you can send him email at Ninthnet@mail.house.gov or you can contact him via phone or mail at:
188 East Main Street
Abingdon, Virginia 24210
276-628-1145
112 North Washington Avenue
Pulaski, Virginia 24301
540-980-4310
1 Cloverleaf Square, Suite C-1
Big Stone Gap, Virginia 24219
276-523-5450
2187 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
202-225-3861
finally, you can visit his web site at http://www.house.gov/boucher
Miko O'Sullivan
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
Who says that companies are the only copyright holders.
Every person alive has created lots of Intellectual Property. We do consume others, but we do generate our own, if only the discussions with other people.
This information belong to us, and we should also get a say in how the law acts.
Mailing list/usenet archives are wealths of information that WE created only due to the ease of copying and transmission.
I think that the restrictions of discussion boards or mailing lists could prevent the creation of more useful content then comes out of the MPAA and RIAA.
That isn't even factoring the small bands music, or amateur movies (Troops anyone)
I just think the focus should be on the people who create the majority of the worlds IP, not the few companies who make a small sliver of it.
I can't find any good links which explain it in detail. But essentially the equipment makers have worked together with the media producers to create HDCP(High-Bandwidth Digital Copy Protection)... or essentially another encrypted signal sort of like how DVDs are encoded. They are now promoting that future devices such as HDTV enabled video tape recorders, new HD versions of DVD, and so forth will only output a HDCP signal. They are even talking now of replacing the HDTV OTA receivers with new models that will only output true HD content using HDCP, the current receivers will be somehow limited to like a 480p signal.(not sure how they accomplish this)
:(
Currently most HDTV televisions and monitors sold over the past several years have Component Video inputs(three RCA jacked cables on the back of the set). They don't support HDCP. This new standard will be supported by yet a different cabling standard using DVI connectors.
So what's this mean?
Everybody who currently owns a HDTV, essentially all of the early adopters, will never be able to receive High-Definition content on them. The best you can hope for is the 480p signal like that which is output by Progressive scan DVD players. The hardware makers will not be allowed to output high-def signals to component video, nor will they be allowed to build conversion boxes to convert DVI to Component Video, despite the sets being capable of displaying that image.
Anyway, I think it's pretty bloody stupid. Especially since it will probably severely cripple the introduction of those newer technologies like the video tape and HD-DVD, etc. since the earlier adopters won't adopt it.
BTW, I own a HDTV set I purchased back in January. This news came out just a few weeks after I made my purchse.
You are right. I am thinking of Osorio or Fuentes or Armas? It was one of the South American, right-wing dictators of the era.
q.
v.
illegitimii non ingravare
Ironically, you seem to be guilty of the exact same behavior. You're accusing others of automatically labelling anyone who disagrees
:)
This thread could get very circular, very fast
http://www.house.gov/writerep/ - A form to find out who your representatives are.
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.htm - U.S. Representatives by State
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html - Representative's Websites
C. Montgomery Burns
666 Mammon Lane
Springfield , USA 12345
044-171-555-1212
Job: Evil Centenarian
Political Affiliation: Republican
Sex: Requires Drugs
Marital Status: Single
Comment: "I have billions of dollars, save on energy costs because I glow in the dark, and enjoy being bathed by my sensitive male Executive Assistant."
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
If you do move to Virginia, be sure to campaign to get this reversed.
And if you can't manage that, try to get amendments embedded that will sanitise it. (If there is too much disagreement between the versions that the various states enact, it will be considerably weakened.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Think of how powerful media corporations are. They are truely the ones that make or break a politician.
And how hard would it be to arrainge a few hookers, some hidden cameras, etc. and then save it 'til the next election. Or worse, blackmail him now.
And how hard would it be to just digitally fake the whole thing with blue screens and some graphics people.
Scary these days. It's hard to know who's really telling the truth. Then again, it's always been this way. You just have to have blind faith that everything's going to work out.
Look at AOL-TW. Hahaha
Cool! Amazing Toys.