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Boucher Introduces New Bill
brandido writes "The Register is reporting that Rep. Rick Boucher unveiled his attempt at returning some rights to consumers. According to the Register: "As we reported yesterday, some of the biggest names in IT names were on hand to support a legislation from Rep. Rick Boucher unveiled this morning. Boucher vowed to strike out the repressive portions of the DMCA, and 'directs the Federal Trade Commission to undertake a rulemaking to assure adequate notice to the public of any lack of functionality which may attend the purchase of copy protected CDs.'" Details of the bill can be found in PDF format , as can a summary and Boucher's Statement (taken from The Reg story)." Oddly, this bill focuses on notification that you're buying copy-restricted music disks instead of CDs (which is useful, but hardly major), and only contains a few vague amendments to the DMCA itself. Neither of these is worth paying much attention to: Congress is about to wrap up and go home for the year, and will start afresh in January with a clean slate. Perhaps in January some bright Congressperson will introduce a bill which actually takes strong steps toward repealing the DMCA.
You know, I would seriously consider voting for Boucher, were he to run for president. I wonder if his recent slew of bills that are geared towards more consumers/against big businesses could be his beginning of a big PR campaign.
Don't laugh. Having big corporate sponsors is becoming less and less important with new campaign finance laws.
I don't want to know that the disk is copy-protected, I want a disk that IS NOT copy-protected, DRMed or screwed in any way to attempt to prevent me from making a copy for personal use. I also don't want DRM or copy-protection schemes built into the hardware I buy to play my copies on. I'd much rather pay additional fees in my media and components (as I already do) than be prevented (in some way someone will break) from making a copy.
Bastards. "1 million movies a day" -- Jack "Stupid" Valenti.
TossableDigits.com: Temporary Phone Numb
I submitted this to /., but it was rejected...
This is from her website...
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) today introduced legislation designed to protect consumer's ability to enjoy digital copyrighted material. Lofgren's bill, the "Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002," gives lawful consumers the ability to make personal uses of digital entertainment such as music, movies, and books. In addition, the bill recognizes that digital piracy will never be truly solved until consumers are given an affordable, reliable, legitimate and secure alternative.
"Consumers need a voice in this debate. Right now, it is the entertainment industry versus the technology industry, and the consumers are watching from the sidelines," said Lofgren. "Consumers have rights and expectations that cannot be ignored by industry goliaths."
Aside from the content of the Boucher-Doolittle bill, this C|NET article mentioned something else important about it: Rep. Boucher had it introduced not in the House Judiciary Committee, where Intellectual Property subcommittee chairman Howard Coble would be a fierce opponent to it, but in the friendlier world of the Commerce Committee. Whether or not you like what the bill actually says - and that doesn't even matter, since it won't happen this year - Boucher's strategical move is an extremely useful tactic in getting such legislation passed (or, for that matter, even acknowledged) in the future.
>>Boucher is one of very few people on the hill >>who will give us the time of day. We need him.
Granted it was a nice gesture, but let me play devils advocate here.
What we NEED is somebody who's doing to do something *useful*.
He knows (and we know) that this bill has absolutely ZERO chance of going anywhere with elections weeks away. None. Zilch. It's so dead it's already stinkin up the place.
So why does he do it? For political reasons of course. Make himself look good - fighting for the little guy - but there's zero chance that he'll actually need to put his neck on the line and accomplish anything. Nice gig.
Give me a call when he actually starts doing something USEFUL. Not when he's doing political grandstanding and grubbing for votes (which is all this REALLY is).
I know this gesture raises his stature around here. But for me, he's dropped a few notches becuase it's the same old political bullshit. If he had introduced this a year ago I'd be right on board with the rest clapping and cheering. Introducing it now -- just playing manipulative politics and mugging for the cameras.
It's like writing a check but postdating it for the year 5000. A nice gesture, but you'll never have to worry about it being cashed. That doesn't make u cool in my book. It makes you a weasel.
Sorry Boucher - no better than the rest of them.
Boucher and Lofgren are well aware of the fact that these bills will not pass this year. That isn't why they introduced them. They're trying to stake out their position, line up their supporters, and show that this is a major issue. If they had just waited until next year and introduced them cold, they might not get much reception. As it stands now, when the bills (or maybe it'll be down to one by then, I'm not really sure) get brought up again next session, people will be expecting them and the fight will be on.
Furthermore, they are limiting this to just music for two reasons. First of all, these sorts of fair use rights don't have the same force when applied to your standard computer software that they do when applied to music and movies. Yes, I'm aware (are so are Boucher/Lofgren) that many people want to make backup copies of software. However, most people (especially those in Congress) see less of a coorelation between copying software and fair use than they do between copying software and piracy. Music is different. With music, I can rip my music from a CD and keep it as an MP3 (or Ogg, if you will) on my computer and listen to it there, transfer it to my MP3 player, mix and burn my own CD's (like the tape compilations we all made before CD burners became widely available), etc. These are rights that have a waiting market to exploit them, and the markets have been working for years. Boucher/Lofgren can cast their arguments in terms of simply keeping consumers with the same rights they've always had. These uses don't really exist in the same way with software because no one needs to be able to rip a program from a CD in order to install it to their Palm Pilot. However, they do need to be able to copy it do distribute it online. By limiting the operation of the bill to only music (I think Lofgren's also includes movies and other media), it's easier to keep the focus where it should be: on consumers and off of pirates.
Another thing to consider is that Boucher/Lofgren need the backing of tech companies right now. There has to be a powerful lobby behind this thing, because I can guarantee you that unless some big money makers get into the fight these bills will die a cold, hard death. You are never going to get big tech companies (at least not tech companies that put out any kind of computer software) to support a bill that specifically tells consumers they can break the tech companies' copy protection. We can keep the tech companies happy for the moment by leaving them out, and then make the argument after the bill passes that software should be included as well. After all, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Hell, Valenti and Rosen might even back something like that as a retaliation for tech companies backing the Boucher/Lofgren bills. The more we do to keep them fighting against each other, the more we win.
Just something to think about.
Tuck
Tuck's Journal.