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Public Domain Act Introduced Into Congress
AnElder writes "In his blog yesterday Lawrence Lessig said '...Congresswoman Lofgren (D-CA) and Congressman Doolittle (R-CA) have agreed to introduce the Public Domain Enhancement Act into Congress.' Today the Eldred Act website features two press releases announcing the act's introduction, as well as its immediate support by '...the American Association of Law Libraries, the American Library Association, and the Association of Research Libraries...'" We ran a link to the petition supporting this Act a few weeks back.
Exactly... as was said in the previous /. post, this is so that large companies don't just hold onto copyrights that they have no intention of doing anything with (publishing) "just in case". This will help open up that vast back catalog of great, but non-comercially-viable music/books/etc. that many major companies have lying around,
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
how come the bad guys are smart enough to heavily influence politics with their money but the good guys aren't?
Because people keep giving the 'bad' guys money. Have you bought a CD/DVD, gone to see a movie, or bought a book? You've just given money to the 'bad' guys. If you want the EFF to buy off a congressman, send them a $20 check instead of buying a CD. I don't have the figures, but I feel pretty confident that the EFF didn't bring in as much as AOL/TW last year.
WTF? "Insightful?" "Interesting?" Well, I think I'd mod this up too - to hold it up for ridicule.
.sig - "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"
Read your
Your post suggests trading $ for votes. "My vote won't count, but my $ will!"? Isn't that essentially giving up the most needed of democratic liberties? OK, so corporate America seems to run the show and seems to be able to buy votes - following through with your suggestion would only show that they've won and Congress is a place to buy profits. Unless you have a lot more $ than the opposition, your vote still doesn't matter. Fighting fire with fire sometimes leaves nothing but scorched earth.
Listen to Sen. John McCain when he speaks of the need to rid elections of "soft money" - that is the crux of the problem. It will take a lot of time and energy to have the coprorate shills either turfed from office or earn thier election donations, but it can be done without stooping to the level of bribery. Use your rights fercryingoutloud - Freedom of Speech jumps into my head.
Sheesh.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Ever notice how, when an IP law (smart or stupid) is introduced in Congress, it's nearly always by 1 Democrat and 1 Republican? It's not due to the wonderfully happy beautiful spirit of bipartisanship that's permeating the air of Washington. Naw I'm more cynical than that.
Here's why. The RIAA, MPAA, etc. make sure they toss around large amounts of money to both parties (as all good interest groups should do) to get the laws they want passed. As IP policy is not addressed by the platforms of either political party, those who are going to sell out and fuck america up the ass for lots of campaign money realize that it will not only look better if they introduce said law in bipartisan pairs, but it is much safer, too. A bill sponsored by 1 republican and 1 democrat is much less likely to be attacked by either party as a whole. In fact, such a bill will never be attacked by either party as a whole. If, say, the republicans were the ones passing all the "destroy their computers and send them to guantanimo" IP laws, the democrats would immediately campaign against it, and vice-versa. So since both parties know the other doesn't care, and since both parties have plenty of members willing to whore themselves out for money, those who introduce these bills know it's mutually beneficial for both parties to do so in pairs.
Of course the same thing does for good laws, such as the one that's the subject of this thread. If two Republicans introduced the Eldred Act, the Democrats would immediately accuse the Reps of supporting criminals.
Insightful. You bet your ass.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
about 9000 books that were writen in the 1930s and have not been in print for about 40 years.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Screw the Berne Treaty
If Bush can decide that he wants to pull out of treaties designed to keep the peace, I have no problem pulling out of treaties designed by corporations to keep the profits.
90% of everything is crap. Also, crap is relative.
I don't see why the EFF and similar groups can't 'invest' in a few reelection campaigns. The business model is established by numerous corporations and special interest groups - all it would take are funds. In fact the same applies to all progressive social and political groups... how come the bad guys are smart enough to heavily influence politics with their money but the good guys aren't?
BECAUSE THEY CAN'T!!!
Non profit 503(c)3 "educational" organizations can't spend a single dollar on political campaigns. That's the tradeoff you get for knowing your contributions from them are tax-deductible.
The ONLY kind of organization that can raise money from the public
That's why EFF, Public Citizen, etc. can only wring their hands when shit like the DMCA passes. All they can do is beg and plead with Congresscritters for mercy. They get polite treatment. The people with the checks get results.
No, the major corporations don't always get their own way on the Hill. It is possible for people's organizations to get enough money from people in $5 and $10 and $20 and $100 contributions and disburse them in $1000 and $5000 and $10,000 checks, to hire full-time staff to analyze new laws so the members don't get blindsided, to hire lobbyists, to hire staff to open envelopes. And they can and do run political campaigns against people who persist in not getting the message.
The existence proofs are the NRA and the AARP. They are professionally run, they raise money, they represent their membership effectively.
What's the bottom line for us? A small group of people come up with a couple or 3 million dollars they don't expect to be tax deductible. Not to give to politicians, to hire top-bracket pros to build the fund-raising infrastructure to make it possible to raise money from us in $5 and $10 and $20 and $100 contributions to make meaningful contributions.
American high-tech types have the following choices:
- learn to bend over and take it with a smile and practice "Would you like fries with that?"
- Get it together and start doing the PAC stuff right fucking now.
- get ready to leave the US permanently for places outside the reach of Hollywood cartel-owned politicians.
- Hope the RIAA member labels go bankrupt before they do any more serious damage to the high-tech scene.
But without the startup money, this goes noplace. If nobody's willing to come forward with the price of freedom while it can still be paid in dollars, the only solutions to this problem are individual... figuring how to get out from under.Nobody's going to come forward with the startup money.
The people who can are under the delusion that the Hollywood cartel can be negotiated with, and after they come up with consumer devices that'll make Hollywood happy but that nobody will buy because they're DRM-broken to uselessness, Hollywood will make all their content available for pay-per-download for everybody that the Internet infrastructure can't support, and we'll all march off to a future of infinite profits.
I'm looking for . . . an individual solution.
Tech Public Policy stuff