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Sen. Hatch to Introduce Wide-ranging Copyright Bill

Posted by michael on from the because-he-hates-you dept.

The Importance of writes "C|Net News is reporting that a new copyright bill, to be introduced next week by Sen. Orrin Hatch, will likely overturn the Betamax decision (which held that VCRs were legal) and threaten all sorts of innovation. EFF broke the story and Copyfight has been all over it. Don't miss the comments of law professor Susan Crawford who says, 'This is amazing. Now we're waaaaaay beyond contributory and vicarious theories of liability, which are court-created and pretty darn broad on their own.' Text of the bill here and PDF."

4 of 891 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Can't overturn the decision by John+Seminal · · Score: 5, Informative
    The court case specifically said Congress has the power to enact laws which would change the Betamax case outcome. The Court said they came to the conclusion based on laws congress had on the books. If those laws change, the outcome of the case would change.

    What I think is more important is the RIAA hired Senator Hatchs son as one of their lobbyists. It should be a conflict of interest. Since they can't outright buy the Senator, they hire the kid who will have a wealth of oppertunity to influance his father.

    --

    Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."

  2. Re:Powerful incentives by clbyjack81 · · Score: 5, Informative
    And even more screwed up is how he abides by his own convictions .

    --
    Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant. The population is growing.
  3. Re:Powerful incentives by Stargoat · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hey, it's our old friend, the Jackass from Utah!
    1. Senator Hatch was the fellow who last year wanted to develop software to physically destroy the computers of people who download music.
    2. One of his staffers cracked into computers of House Democrats.
    3. Senator Hatch's website used unlicensed (read illegal) hosting software for several months.
    4. Hatch also thinks of himself as an amateur musician, who is losing money because people download his music.
    5. Hatch's son is a lawyer, one of who's clients is the SCO.

    --
    Hoist Number One and Number Six.
  4. Re:Powerful incentives by Erwos · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Digital Millenium Copyright Act was passed under a Democratic president. Please stop trying to pretend either party is terribly interested in giving you all the "fair use rights" you want for copyrighted works.

    -Erwos

    --
    Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.