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Congress' Tech Agenda
A reader writes: "Fox News is running a story on Congress' Tech Agenda. We have all been reading about plenty of legislation as each bill is introduced or considered, but it's nice to see a major news outlet picking up on the larger trend."
This seems to be on the agenda of mainstream news agencies as well. Media reposts tend to equate real-life security with online security bigtime. http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10 738,2909590,00.html
This article talks of Bill Gates and Sep11 in the beginning. Towards the end, there's mention of a "War Against The Bad Guys" as long as we use PCs and networks. Bears investigation.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I'm assuming that the majority of Slashdot folk are in favor of keeping the Internet tax-free -- at least for the time being. (IMO, new regulations forced on the internet sector for online sales and Internet access would have a horrible affect on an already hard-hit portion of our economy... but then again, I'm biased... but aren't we all.)
As mentioned in the article, legislation has been introduced in both the House and the Senate that will extend the current moratorium on new taxes for Internet access and e-commerce activity.
Contact your members of Congress and voice your support for House Bill H.R. 49 and Senate Bill S.52
Contact Congress concerning H.R.49 Here
Contact Congress concerning S.52 Here
Polite emails (and/or snail-mailed letters, as they carry the most weight) simply stating your support for these bills will suffice.
One step forward two steps back. Its all right when these guys make such laws, but there are so many loopholes in these laws which BSA ppl can interpret easily as they want. In the end all this DMCRA wont get you anywhere. Even if a few good men try to get it right your Hon. Senater Hollings will ensure that there are enough loopholes big enough to get a dinosaur through.
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Rupert Murdoch, his News Corp, the Fox News subsidiary have just about the worst track record of sacrificing truth to profit.
For example, consider his relationship with the Chinese Gov't:
- Chris Patten, the last British governor or Hong Kong, wrote a book about Hong Kong's transistion to Chinese rule. It wasn't flattering to the Chinese gov't. They objected, so News Corp killed publication worldwide.
- The Chinese gov't didn't like BBC news being broadcast over a satellite owned by Murdoch/News Corp. As in many places, the BBC was the only reliable source of news available; it's even more valuable to people with totaliatrian gov'ts oppressing them. Murdoch removed the channel.
That's only a couple examples. I never watch Fox myself -- how do I know when it's the facts, and when it's Murdoch kissing someones a**?
For those who don't know: Murdoch owns News Corp. and everything named 'Fox' (well, maybe a few exceptions). News Corp. is one of those 5 large media companies that own nearly everything from movie studios to news outlets to music, the others being AOL-TW, Sony, Bertelsmann and Vivendi.
Naturally, I don't trust these guys. They're politicians. Here's a few bits that, assuming are valid as news, I don't trust, and why.
First up is Robert Cresanti, vice president of the Business Software Alliance, trying to keep the DMCA unaltered. That's his job, but that anyone thinks the DMCA is reasonable is bogus.
More relevantly is the DMRCA, most particularly, this bit: Among them is the Digital Media Consumers Rights Act, introduced by Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., that gives consumers more fair-use rights for digital products and calls for copy-protected CDs to be clearly labeled if they include copy-proof technologies.
We all know there's no such thing as copy-*proof*. Copy-resistant, yes; but not copy-proof. If the bill in fact makes reference to copy-proof, then it really doesn't do anything but pay lip service to "consumer's rights."
Fritz rears his ugly head once more, but since he's not in charge of the tech committee at this point he's less of a threat. He still demonstrates his complete inability to understand computers, here: Backing the entertainment industry, Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., may reintroduce a bill to prohibit the making and distribution of "digital media devices" unless they include government-approved copy restriction technology.
Hollings has said that he really doesn't want the legislation, but some type of compromise is needed. Various tech industry groups and the Recording Industry Association of America recently promised to fight any such mandates and work out the piracy problem.
Yeah, "compromise." I recall reading here a while ago that if I want to cut both your legs off, you don't compromise by removing just the left one. The original deal was completely outrageous. Even halfway is far too far.
Curious is the last sentence, saying that the RIAA is intending to fight such mandates? Forgive me if I'm skeptical, but if they follow through with reasonable approaches, this would be a fair compromise. They protect their revenue using traditional copyright laws, everyone else can do what they like with their IP. However, I'm not holding my breath. I find pre-dawn, kick-in-the-door, 1 48x CD-burner = 24 CD-burners much more likely.
The MPAA is a bit more up-front: The Motion Picture Association of America's solution to rampant piracy is "to run to Congress and try to force a solution there that is a dangerous, ongoing process for us," said Cresanti, who argued the tech industry is too young to be more heavily regulated. Hardly surprising; however, why is Cresanti, the BSA representative, speaking on behalf of the MPAA?
There's a large bit about giving tax credits for broadband deployments, and *not* adding new taxes to e-commerce; so those businesses that exist only online would do well to move to Nevada or other state with no sales tax and no tax agreements with other states.
I also found this part interesting, The group recently released its Tech Environmental Quality Index, which shows that government is creating an increasingly hostile environment for innovation, competition and growth in the tech industry, but can't think of how to comment on that. Rep. Chrtopher Cox (R-CA) can speak for me, "Given the continued softness in the tech economy, this is hardly the time for new taxes on the Internet," Cox said in a statement. "Rather, providing long-term certainty about tax policy is one of the necessary ingredients for a tech rebound."
Finally, it looks like we're going to have an argument similar to "Are the X-Men humans or animals?" debates (an article a while back, which was caused by different taxation rates for toys representing humans, and toys representing animals, that I can't find in the time I have), based on this final bit: "This is a very thorny thing right now," Thierer said last week. "There are amazing battles going on about what's a granola bar."
Sigs are like bumper stickers.