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Hollings vs. McCain on Broadband and Copyrights
tabdelgawad writes "The Washington Post has a mostly speculative article on the effects of John McCain (R-AR) replacing Ernest 'Fritz' Hollings (D-SC) as chairman of the powerful senate Commerce Committee. Topics in the article include the future of pending broadband and copyright legislation as well as the Senate's relationship with the FCC. Best quote from the article belongs to ITAA president Harris Miller: 'If Jack Valenti had been around at the time of Gutenberg he would have organized the monks to come and burn down the printing press' :-)."
More appropriate to say if Jack Valentini had been around during the time of Nazi Germany, he would have led Hitler's book-burning campaign.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Ever since he lost his presidential bid McCain's been the Democrats Democrat (yes, I know - He's a Republican in name only). His Stances and choices usually support what the Democrats want, and often exceeds their wildest dreams. Seeing as how the Entertainment industry is most entrenched in the DNC (Like Babs Streisand and others) look for McCain handing Everything the MPAA wants in a very short order.
This is a bad thing for opponents of the DMCA.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
John McCain (R-AR)
AR? I thought McCain was an Arizona senator. That's AZ.
No sig for you.
Well, this article was quite rather mindnumbing and inconclusive, but if I'm reading this quite right, then it seems like the telco's monopolistic reigns are to in^H^Hdecrease in power (hahahahaha... riiiight). Thus allowing for more DSL providers. Well, yea this will resolve the last mile. Telcos will never put the equips in their CO's just for OTHER DSL providers. I forsee, regardless of the laws to be passed, telcos will disregard them, virtual monopolies will continues.
oooh, anti-digital copying protection. This falls back to "closing the analog hole" discussion that we had before. It can't really be done because the last step from the tv/player to our eyes are analog, as some other people have stated before. Laws and technologies will put up barriers, but future technologies will overcome the barriers preventing us from legally having our backups.
This will prove very interresting. On one hand, Sen. McCain is a Republican and Republicans generally favor "small" government, which can (and often does) lead to deregulation. On the other hand, Republicans have bowed-down to big business interrests in the past (does anyone really need examples?), and this could be what der Fuehrer Valenti is counting on.
No matter where you go... there you are.
I'm pretty sure Jack Valenti wasn't around in Gutenberg's day. But Strom Thurmond might have been ....
-kgj
Commerce Power Shift Could Shake Up Piracy, Broadband Debates
By David McGuire
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Monday, December 23, 2002; 7:47 AM
As the newly Republican Senate prepares to take office in January, high-tech lobbyists are anxiously waiting to see how the power shift affects the measures they care about most. In the Commerce Committee, which holds sway over a clutch of high-tech issues, Arizona Republican John McCain's return to the chairmanship could shift the balance in key debates over broadband and electronic copyright protection.
The Commerce Committee has done little more than release a brief statement detailing its plans for early 2003, promising examinations of spectrum policy, media takeovers, cable rates, broadband rules, telecom competition and intellectual property law. But staff members won't discuss McCain's positions on these topics.
McCain has a record of fighting passionate yet sometimes unsuccessful battles against legislative juggernauts that often originated in his own party, but tech industry lobbyists said that he is a shrewd practitioner of compromise and may bring that art to some of the most difficult debates facing the technology industry.
The Yankee Group, a Boston-based research firm, described McCain's approach to broadband policy as "pragmatic deregulation." One of McCain's staffers noted that while the senator believes in free competition, he favors "consumer interests above special interests."
Reed Hundt, who headed up the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997, said McCain's return to power on the committee wouldn't benefit any single group.
"He's pretty much an eclectic mix of policies when it comes to the FCC," Hundt said. "When I was at the FCC he was probably my best friend on 50 percent of the issues I cared about."
McCain in some ways occupies the opposite pole from outgoing Chairman Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D-S.C.), a vital ally to those on his side of the ideological fence, and a fierce enemy to anyone on the other side.
That is not to say that the two men are completely different. Both are stalwart supporters of their parties, though McCain has frustrated and bedeviled many of his Senate Republican colleagues by bucking the party platform on big-money issues like campaign finance and tobacco. Hollings has tested the patience of senators of both parties because of his ardent, and usually intractable opinions on technology issues.
Each in his position on the committee has used the unique power that committee chairmen wield, but the technology industry in 2003 is preparing to focus on McCain, who could become the most powerful arbiter of the fates of telecommunications rules and the future of copyright and intellectual property on the Internet.
Booming Voices in Broadband
In the just-concluded session, the Commerce Committee considered several bills to make it easier for the traditional local phone companies -- the Baby Bells -- to sell high-speed digital subscriber-line services wherever they want. Hollings, a supporter of the long-distance companies and smaller firms that compete against the Bells, was no fan. When he was chairman, none of the proposals made it through the committee.
The Tauzin-Dingell Bill, named for Reps. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.) and John Dingell (D-Mich.), was the most prominent legislation that Hollings helped squelch. It would have removed many of the regulations that stand between the Bells and the nationwide high-speed Internet access market.
After passing the House of Representatives, it ran into Hollings, who buried it. Some telecom industry representatives predicted that McCain will consign it to history and take another approach.
"The question is whether Sen. McCain would be more interested in drafting some kind of a compromise," said John Windhausen, president of the Association for Local Telecommunications Services (ALTS).
McCain last year took a stab at a compromise that gave the Baby Bells more freedom, but required them to make their services available to rural areas and places often considered poor investments. Hollings kept the bill down, instead writing legislation that would have authorized hundreds of millions of dollars in government handouts for broadband deployment without getting rid of any regulations.
U.S. Telecommunications Association (USTA) spokeswoman Allison Remsen said McCain's traditional stance on business matters favors Tauzin-Dingell supporters.
"I think he brings a different approach to the committee," Remsen said. "I think that he is going to look at the issues from more of a market-based approach and favors that over trying to heavily regulate competition."
Michael Boland, Verizon's senior lobbyist, said that the tussle between Hollings and the Tauzin-Dingell bill's supporters led to a deadlock on broadband.
Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), said that supporters of deregulation should not cheer too loudly. Any one senator has enough power to put a "hold" on a bill, Miller said, noting that Hollings and other foes of deregulation still could wield a big stick.
Former FCC Chairman Hundt said he doubted that the Hollings-McCain power shift would change the likelihood that lawmakers will take their own direct action on broadband in the next two years.
"It's a mixed bag if you're a Bell company or if you're AT&T," Hundt said of McCain. "It's not 'he's with us or he's against us."
Yankee Group Senior Analyst J.P. Gownder also warned that McCain is not a shoe-in for deregulation.
While he sees it as a useful tool, "he really is quite a populist," Gownder said. "He really wants to see the consumers benefit. When he sees deregulation to a bad deal for consumers he's really quite critical."
The FCC Connection
High-speed Internet access remains a congressional priority, but industry focus has shifted to the FCC, which is pushing for telecom deregulation along the lines of what what Tauzin and Dingell want.
FCC Chairman Michael Powell has argued that consumers have plenty of high-speed access choices, and that it's time to rethink -- and maybe eliminate -- some of the rules that keep the Bells' DSL services in restricted markets. No less an authority than President Bush said that the White House will abide by Powell's decision.
Powell has less to worry about now that Hollings is not only out of the Commerce chair, but also of his role as chief of the Appropriations subcommittee in charge of FCC funding. Sen. Judd Gregg, (R-N.H.) will take the helm of that subcommittee from Hollings, who as chairman had repeatedly threatened to slash the FCC's budget.
Foes of the Baby Bells said that Gregg is no enemy, but he isn't the staunch ally when it comes to battling the local phone monopolies that Hollings was.
"We see him as taking a moderate position, but we can't say whether he's leaning [more] to one side or another," said ALTS's Windhausen.
ALTS, has Gregg listed as a "three" on a one-to-five scale that rates how friendly lawmakers are to competitive carriers. Hollings earns the highest rating of "one."
Hollings also will lose his chairmanship of the Commerce subcommittee that oversees the FCC's "reauthorization" bills, which determine the commission's agenda and scope. Reauthorization does not always affect the commission's budget, but has proven an effective vehicle for the committee to step up its oversight of the commission.
Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) is expected to take the lead on the FCC's reauthorization, which is up this year, while Hollings likely will hold the ranking Democrat spot. Burns also has a higher opinion of Powell's deregulation tendencies than Hollings, noting in a press statement earlier this year "Powell's clear vision of where telecommunications needs to go in this country."
Although Hollings's threats to gut the FCC's funding were probably more hyperbolic than literal, they had the desired effect of slowing the pace of broadband deregulation, Gownder said.
"I think Michael Powell can certainly work with John McCain and vice versa," Gownder said.
Verizon's Boland added that Powell now "faces much less risk of congressional contravention so that he can now push his revisions of the current rules all the way through."
Guardian of Copyrights
If Hollings has been a tough opponent to the Bell companies, he has been seen as an ally to the movie studios and recording companies. McCain's return to the committee chair could herald a sea change in the debate.
Hollings's Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) earned him the scorn of computer makers and free speech advocates because it would have forced them to include anti-digital copying devices in their products.
The opponents said the bill would transform their products into glorified DVD players, but Hollings heeded Hollywood and pushed hard to get the legislation passed.
"My intuitive sense is that it will have an effect, and one that Hollywood won't be that happy about," said Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn. "If the Chairman is the champion of your bill and he's no longer the chairman, obviously that takes the wind out of the sails over your bill."
Public Knowledge is one of many public interest groups that opposes Hollings's proposal, saying it threatens the consumer's right to "fair use" of copyrighted works, like making a personal copy of an album or a videocassette.
Sohn said the Hollings legislation probably wouldn't fit in with McCain's other policy stances. "McCain is generally deregulatory and that's good news for the opponents of this bill because it's as regulatory as it (gets)," Sohn said.
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) President Jack Valenti -- one of the most vocal supporters of efforts to bolster copyright protection -- said the Senate shift wouldn't hurt that cause.
"I don't think it affects the debate at all. The change in chairmanship does not affect the need to protect creative works from piracy," Valenti said.
The ITAA's Miller said the party swap could provide a small boon to opponents of the Hollings bill, but that its supporters still will push hard for it.
"I never want to underestimate the (MPAA's) ability to lobby these issues," Miller said. "If Jack Valenti had been around at the time of Gutenberg he would have organized the monks to come and burn down the printing press."
McCain, however, remains the big question mark.
"I don't think McCain is seen as being particularly dogmatic on the issue on one side or other," Miller said. "McCain is obviously skeptical about government mandating industry standards, but the (type of) thing he feels zealous about is campaign finance reform, not necessarily beating up Hollywood or alternatively beating up the Internet.
"A committee chairman can be a major point of obstruction if he says 'this is not going through me.' A chairman who feels strongly about an issue can be a difficult rock to climb over," he added.
If a chairman is a strong opponent of legislation that must pass through his committee, he or she often might squelch the measure, even if it is popular among a majority of lawmakers. Committee chairmen can also champion less popular causes that might not receive congressional attention without their patronage.
McCain's unwillingness to be pigeonholed on pet issues makes it difficult to predict how he'll address them, observers said.
"That's the fear for all of us. We don't know where McCain is going to come out on these issues." Windhausen said.
-- washingtonpost.com Staff Writer Robert MacMillan contributed to this report.
Why are you guys posting! It's Christmas, go enjoy the day with your family, I can't believe what nerds you are for posting, and...
oh wait. shit.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
tongueincheek
/tongueincheek
I can see the future now. We will simply make it illegal to make backups. Think of all the extra money the corps will make by selling that content again and again to the same people. Think of all the extra money corps will have by not having to worry about buying tapes and drives and all that messy stuff. Catastrophic data loss? That's what insurance is for. And only we can afford it. The hapless consumers will just have to buy more, more, MORE!!
Weird, anyhting inside the left pointing arrow and the right pointing arrow simply does not appear.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
In English that means kiss half your rights goodbye on any IP issue. Note, just half. McCain is a media whore like most politicians that aspire to be anything at the national level and will not allow himself to be seen as partisan to either side. He'll try to make a sly push to appear to be the knight in shining armor that will protect both sides. But as we all know you can't protect one without harming the other.
The situation itself is IMO part of the problem with giving the public the right to choose their senators. It used to be that the states could keep their senators on a tight leash and guarantee the death of their political career if they acted so badly. Let's face it, the public doesn't have what it takes to reign in a politician this side of Hitler or Stalin.
One of the worst examples of compromise is Trent Lott. You all should have seen the joyous celebration at FreeRepublic when it was event hinted that he might resign. The man is not only a racist scumbag, but he compromised the values of every conservative and libertarian voter represented by the RP. I for one am glad as a (classical) Liberal to see him gone. The only thing that would make me happier is to see the 16th and 17th amendments repealed. The state legislatures need to be able to hold their senators' asses to the fire again to keep them from compromising on our rights.
There is one thing that I should mention on that note, one of the most overlooked problems with compromise on gun control is that it puts the public in a subordinate position, armamentwise, to the local police force. Look at Philadelphia, the land of brotherly love, where every black man is a suspect and much of the PD make the Gestapo look subtle. Pink Pistols' motto says it right when it comes to armed minorities, "An armed homosexual is not a bashed homosexual." Those "common sense compromises" only make such pigs more bold in their repression of minorities and dissenters. A cop with such an approach to executing the law of the land will think twice before trying to beat someone within an inch of their lives if they think the person is armed and knows how to use the gun. That is especially true for racial and ethnic minorities.
Sorry, half off topic, but worth noting.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
In the future, I suspect that MPAA and RIAA will try to make it impossible to distribute independently-created media without an expensive "anti-piracy" audit, just as license audits are used to shake down schools and businesses today.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Someone here said McCain is "a bad thing for opponants of the DMCA". I dont know McCain, so I cant really comment on that. But consider is from another position. IS there any way he could be worse than Hollings? Hollings was nicknamed "the senator from Disney". Hes so well known for his CDTBPA that hardware copy protection componants are refered to as Fritz chips. I dont know McCain, but there is no way he can be as awkward as Hollings. I dont follow US broadband news, but im all for more competition in the area before they start blocking p2p systems. If theres no competition thats a lot easier.
In the areas of policy of most concern to the Slashdot community (Telecoms, IP rights and so on), McCain is probably the best person the US has for the job. Based strictly on his voting record and the policies he defends, we often wouldn't see eye to eye, however philisophically he is very much in the same camp.
McCain tends to take positions based on a populist stance--certainly the best way to do it in a democracy. Less so than most other politicians he listens to ALL voters--not just Republicans, or corporations, or lobby groups.
That's probably why the Post article is all wishy-washy. Normally you can count on a Democrat to bend over and take it in the butt from Jack (Valenti, or most others in the entertainment industry cartels) and for a Republican to bend over and take it from Bill (Gates, or the BSA or others trying to lock people into their tech IP).
McCain is going to be hard to pin down by the pundits because he'll be influenced by everyone and anyone, and the press in north America is very poor at correctly gauging what populist sentiment is--it tries to steer public opinion rather than follow it.
All in all, it is a promising move to have committees steered by those like McCain. The press AND government these days really have a problem listening to what the public wants...
I know I'm going to get nailed for this, but I get so sick and tired of the garbage people spew about copyrights.
If I said I didn't have an incentive to grow oranges unless I could plant a tree in your yard, or I said I didn't have an incentive to make cotton without owning slaves on the plantation, people would see it as the shallow and worthless arguments they are. But if I say I don't have an incentive to create and bring works into the public domain unless I have a copyright monopoly - people just take it on faith. They don't even question it. They just assume on faith that society would fall apart, and artists would be ruined without them. They ignore simle facts like that the entire renassance happened without them, and like how copyrights were originally created as a form of censorship and not a property nor an incentive to creators. They ignore and write off the consistent, dramatic, and often unpredicted success of non "owned" technologies - like Linux, tcp/ip, x86 compatable interfaces, etc...
Not only that, but they completey ignore, blow off, or sweet talk all the bad ancillatory effects of cpoyrights. Eg the failures of hollywood culture, the unethical effects of Microsoft and other companies that leverage intellectual property in a way that does not benefit society in the slightest, biases in the media, overpriced overly revised and modified college books and books of other educational means. And the things that copyright lead to like the DMCA. They ignore things like how the effective enforcement of copyrights is going to require centralized system of checks and enforcement that is costly, invades privacy, violates due-process, and is just plain big-brotherish. And even *if* such a systyem could be held up in the US, implementing that in other countries wiothout constitutional protections could be disasterous, even murderous (eg china).
They ignore simple physical facts. like the fact that normal property has natural limits in supply and demand - that imply markets and property law, but that information has no natural limits. If the government gave someone a monopoly on growing potatos, and then fradulently called that a market because someone could buy or sell that monopoly, they would call it big brotherish and overbearing government regulation. But when they do it with information, people just call it a right, an entitlement, they can't even see that if anything information should have less restrictions in government regulation - not more.
If the government called the right to beat people over the head a property right, would beople just take it that that's the way things should be because they called it *PROPERTY*. Just because government or institutions call something a property does not mean that it is. Think about it.
btw. Merry Christmas
He claimed that VCR's would doom the industry, and they turned out to be their saviour. So, other than him being able to write checks to politicians, is there anything he has to say on this issue that isn't suspect on the face of it?
---
When you come to a fork in the road, take it! --Yogi Berra--
For those that aren't sure what that means, like I was until I did a google:
RINO - Republican In Name Only
--Joey
Overall I think his chairmanship will be good for the tech community. His record and carrer has shown a distrust of large moneyed intrests and sticking up for the little guy against those intrests.
BTW just because he isn't a card carrying member of the Christian Coalition and doesn't invite Trent Lott over for tea doesn't make him any less of a Republican or any less of a conservative. He is a traditional conservative who has more in common with Goldwater (also from AZ) than the current religious right.
I happen to have much respect Senator McCain because he is willing to stand up for what he believes in rather than slavishly sticking to whatever the party platform of the week is.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
The situation itself is IMO part of the problem with giving the public the right to choose their senators.
Hilarious. I know I laughed. Its so insane, that I can't even come back to it. Here are some other highlights:
Look at Philadelphia, the land of brotherly love, where every black man is a suspect and much of the PD make the Gestapo look subtle.
LOL!!! The last time I checked, the Gestapo aided (with the consent of the SS) in the killing of millions of people on summary judgement. I love comparisons of without merit.
Please sit down. You're embarrassing the truly insane.
Some relevent links:
There were plenty of Jack Valentis around at the time of Gutenberg. That's why we have copyright.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
That either party couldn't be bought one way or the other? We need to start funding our own bribes. I'm sure that OSDN will give us free advertiseing toward the project.
We are better at software development, but we aren't as good at bribing, sueing, and libeling.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I'm sorry, I don't understand. Where's the usual "This is a good thing" or "This is a bad thing" tacked on to the news item that helps me comprehend?
_______
2B1ASK1
I call Goodwin's Law! On the first post too, tsk tsk.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Anyone have any background on these people? Aren't they the same guys who said, "carpal tunnel doesn't count as a disability so programmers who have it are SOL"?
[o]_O
I'd be suprised if he'd get any votes from female senators, since the Post published that he's a member of Burning Tree, a sexist country club.
...Not only were septuagenarians golfing shirtless [ewww - ed.], he said, but when his wife arrived to pick him up, she was intercepted in the parking lot and not permitted inside...
We've seen with Lott that if somebody on the hill is implicated as a racist everybody is going to distance themselves from him. It can't be long before sexists get the same treatment. Already Greenspan and executive branch officials are boycotting the place.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
There is a related article about the changing chairmanship of the Judiciary committee, from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), a great advocate for the People, to Orrin Hatch (R-UT), a major supporter of DMCA.
The article's coverage on the "News for Nerds" issues of that committee starts in pargraph sixteen, which begins "The entertainment industry's quest for legislation to stamp out the growing problem of Internet piracy..." and also touches on providing digital content online including webcaster royalties.
-Robert
maybe he really just doesn't have a problem with piracy...
Well, that's kinda my feeling about it too. Speaking as a moderate mostly-Republican, I don't like or trust McCain (it's nothing I could lay down in hard facts, but I get the feeling he's often more interested in digging in his heels and having his own way than in the people's best interests). But I can't imagine why he'd be any worse than the Senator from Disney, whom we KNOW is a pocket Mouse first and foremost.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Bullshit. He stood alone fighting agaist a unified congress trying to pass an act that would expand the media giants monopolies in every American locality during the Clinton administration. Though he lost, he clearly took a firm stance against the giant media cartels and any legislature that would expand their control over television/radio/film.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.