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Copyright Law Mashup Moving Through Congress
The Importance of writes "The INDUCE Act may be dead (for now), but that doesn't mean that Congress won't pass any copyright laws this year. Right now, HR 4077, the "Piracy Deterrence in Education" bill pulls together a number of different initiatives to not only get the government involved in civil copyright enforcement, but change fundamental definitions in copyright, and make certain types of home video viewing illegal. The Senate version (brought to you by Sen. Hatch and Leahy) adds even more copyright law changes. According to Public Knowledge, 'The recording industry and Hollywood are making headway! Threatening bills are positioned to move possibly today or tomorrow (yes, even Saturday!) in the Senate and we need your help, now. Not only do they want to rewrite copyright law (again) to lower the standard required for criminal enforcement of copyright infringement; but now they're changing how you watch TV or DVDs in your own home! The bills (H.R. 4077 and H.R. 2391) also are written to make the way you use iTunes and WiFi a crime. '"
Why doesn't someone sue Disney, Universal, or the other Major DVD producers? After all their TV ads almost all say OWN on DVD today.
It really isn't yours if you can't skip parts, is it?
"Yet another erosion of traditional copyright law's formal requirements of registration. Registration is an important component of copyright because it puts the public on notice of an author's work. Currently, to have the government enforce a copyright criminally, the copyright must be registered, which is by most artists register their copyright so they can have full force of the law. Under 4077, this incentive to register will disappear."
Actually, copyright is automatic, but you need a way to prove it. If I seal up a copy of my book and mail it to myself, the postmark is good enough to verify copyright in court, once the package is unsealed and verified by the court.
I just read the Corante article, with particular attention to the home viewing part. Since this seems to be about copyright in general, the question of printed material comes to mind. Will it be illegal to read a book and skip over the boring parts, like I might with a movie? What about reading a textbook out of order from the authors original intent? This could present a problem with school reading assignments.
I have a hard time imagining that things could become that preposterous with printed material, but media is media, right?
I'd like to think I'm just being silly.
Credo sim. - I think I am.
"the heavy fire of artillery to saturate an area rather than hit a specific target" [dict.org]
Isn't the frequency of restrictive copyright-related law proposed in US a bit too high?
If this gets passed, I propose a new grass-roots effort I want to call the anti-ad.
Since this is an attempt to keep ad revenues on a failing delivery system, why not make the proposed 'enforced wathing' irrelevant by boycotting EVERY product advertised on these media.
Of course this means everyone will have to switch to sodas like 'Big Red' or buy cars like Suzuki or Kia, if the advertisers realize their ads actually have a negative revenue generation they will stop placing ads on these media.
Speaking about power corrupting...
Having just read much of the transcript from the session, I am appalled at how out of touch our lawmakers are with their constituents!
At no time did they reflect on how distorted the current laws are! At no time did any representative ask if this would help the public good! At no time did they consider if this would help promote the creative arts!
They did reflect that it would increase H$$llyw$$d revenue. And artists themselves get 8 cents each.
Do they ONLY represent the mega-corporation producers?
How did they get *so* out of touch?
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." - Josef Stalin
I am a software industry veteran, and I consider myself an activist for copyright reform. And I can't even keep track of these bills, get up to speed on the issues and be on top of things fast enough before they roll out another one. This is attrition tactics by the media industry - they know that eventually, they'll slip one through right before a big holiday weekend when nobody's paying attention, or when some news story in their favor came out the week before. If they just keep getting their shills to propose these bills, like feces thrown at a wall, eventually something will stick.
I want to find candidates to vote for and promote who have reasonable IP policies that promote a balance between a business' right to make money on its investment and the interest of the commons and the citizenry, but it's pretty hard to find these candidates. I know a lot of us here give money to the EFF, but where is this money going? Besides Rep. Boucher of VA, what friends do we have on Capitol Hill, and how do we make more?
Maybe we need to be approaching people earlier on in their political careers, and running broader grass roots campaigns to bring public attention to copyright issues with issues of broad interest like the attempts to kill your right to tape shows in your own house, or the death of our heritage of freely available songs and characters in the form of a cultural commons, which have fueled the imaginations of artists throughout this century, only to be killed by the businesses built on those artists' work.
I accept that copyright law is never going to be of as immediate concern as health insurance, skyrocketing medical costs, nuclear proliferation, rising unemployment and thousands of people dying in war. But we need to make people realize that this is an issue of interest to all of us and that while we are worrying about those immediate problems facing us, certain industries are cynically trying to slip through legislation against the public interest in the hopes that we are too distracted to take action against them.
Now, the affirmative right to watch and skip parts of the content that a consumer has legally obtained only exists if certain conditions are met: no commercial or promotional ads may be skipped.
With product placement becoming more common in movies, does that mean that if we start running a movie we're required to watch the entire thing? That would be a problem for me because sometimes I'll pop a DVD in and skip to my favorite parts.
That's right, this is actually part of the "Piracy Deterrence and Education Act". Declaring the national tree. How can you even try to enact any reasonable legislation if you can't have a bill be about one single thing?
Here's the primary difference. How many CD's can you walk out of the store with? How many digital copies can you distribute over the internet?
Erm, you don't get it do you. So what if I sent out a billion copies of the next Britaney Shears Song? It does not even REMOTELY come close to the effect of my killing a person.
So you are saying that your life is merely worth the same as an arbitary number of digital copies of some media?
If that's the case it is really very sad to be you.
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
It's so obvious to outsiders that republicans are lyars (sic), and we're like, "why can't Americans see the truth?".
It's obvious to many of us on the inside also. You have to remind yourself that like it or not, America was founded by Puritans for Puritans. The fact that others came and flourished was almost an after thought. We do have separation of church and state, but it's pretty much laughed at since day one. Seriously, we have "under God" in our pledge (though introduced in the 1950's) and have had "in God we trust" on all of our currency since long before I was born.
However, the Republicans still appeal to these people. The religious folks say, "I'm glad he took out those damn Arabs... I'm glad he's against Roe v. Wade... I'm glad he believes in supporting 'faith baised' organizations." Thus, they are able to completely ignore all other facts. Keep in mind, many of these people are the same folks who believe that the Earth was created in under 7 days.
>I'm oh-so-glad there's no DMCA in Canada.
Don't worry. Instead we're going to ban you from purchasing satellite equipment from any company except Bell Canada or Starchoice. Yep, that means we'll basically make it illegal for you to watch anything that's even unencrypted for free. Sorry 'bout that. Glad you voted for 'em, though, because I expect a boondoggle of cash to flow in here if I manage to bootleg up some receivers after the law passes.
It's not enough that we just ban US television, we have to ban TV from any country except Canada! YAY MULTICULTURALISM! Multiculturalism is about making sure nobody actually participates in their culture, I assume, after all.
Did I mention we already ban Superman comics, technically? [ ccc 163.(1)(b) ]
Yeah. GO CANADA! We rule!
Oh wait. Hmmm. Can someone remind me what the point is of laws that let you copy anything you like, as long as it's made by Bryan Adams or Celine Dion?
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Maybe you can give us some help here. How exactly do you keep the politicians honest and concerned with public welfare in this place where you 'watch the US from a distance'?
/. poster comes to mind in this respect. Something like: Being a patriot is supporting your country always and your government sometimes. The current U.S. government is almost saying you're a traitor if you're critical of the government.
This isn't a flamebait. It just a question; what do people do in the place you are to keep the political process working and balanced?
I'm writing to you from the Netherlands. Hi.
The best way to answer your question is to point out the differences between our countries:
- We don't allow anyone to give money to our politicians. In the US there are ways for someone to give money to politicians. This is the "legally bribed" part I mentioned earlier. Giving someone money is a good way to make them do your bidding so the most important part of your answer is already in your question.
- We have a culture of being very critical of everything in the Netherlands. We always have an opinion on everything and we need to know the ins and outs of a certain subject before we're satisfied that we've been told the truth. Handy for keeping our government honest, not so good in emergency situations (is that siren really indicating an emergency, i'm not so sure, investigation time).
- We have complete seperation of church and state, and as another poster noted, the US doesn't. When you think about it, religion isn't very democratic. The bible is full of kings and there's the ultimate king who's always right and who's word is always law. It's also a bit totalitarian (god is always watching and sees everything you do). Another reason religion has no place in government is because reality is always changing, the bible has only been updated once and that was a long time ago.
- Ofcourse we have corrupt politicians or people who want to be. The best way for them to keep their illegal income is to hide the fact that they're on the take. Like I said, we're critical in the Netherlands and it shows in the way we treat politicians. When you think about it, they're just human beings like you and me. Most of the time they're not even smarter than us, just more educated or better connected. In my country they have a certain level of fame, ofcourse, but mostly we have the attitude of: "do your job of managing the country, if you don't do it well or you lie about it, we fire you and you can find another job". In contrast, what I can see from the U.S. mindset, everyone's like: "OMG OMG, it's the president of the United States, a demi-god right here among us, WOW, I just saw the emperor of earth on TV". As far as I know, not enough people have been fired for lying or not doing their job (Irak, September 11). U.S. politicians are still lying and getting away with it. A sig from another
- The average education level of the population here is higher than the average level in the U.S. This, together with the religion thing, the non-firing of lyars and the uncritical thinking of the population. It leads to the bamboozling/spinning of the voters. If voters can be made to believe in this political disneyworld where everything is fine and the president is always right, then why would they need to be honest? They can just spin some more and everyone will still vote for them. As I said in my original post, most Dutch just can't believe so many people are voting for Republicans, I guess we're not in their "reality distortion field".
- Corporations have less influence on politics in the Netherlands, corporations are very organized and better connected than citizens. They can make a bigger lobbying fist than us.
My advice, Stop trying to fix symptoms like the Induce Act, you're spending precious political energy on the wrong thing. Use obvious wrongs like the induce act as examples of why the core issues should be tackled.
The core issues, in my opinion
- -- Truth addict for life.
As someone who was (and to an extent, still is) an American-ophile (is that a word?) the whole situation is really distressing me. The parent is right IMO about the problem beginning with the legal bribing of politicians.
I think the problems would almost entirely stop if the US banned political donations from corporations. The INDUCEs, the DMCAs, the targeted top end tax cuts, even the Iraq War.
I know many Americans are going to be saying that "why the hell should we listen to him? He's a foreigner, he should have no say". Well, fair enough, except you're exporting both your Corporation-centric laws and, quite obviously, your foreign policy. There's also your environmental policy. When the US sneezes, the rest of us get covered in slobber.
And the rot stems from the politicians trying to keep the big donators happy - the big business end of town. That's the goal for politicians now in the US. But it's not making Americans happy; it is, as the parent said, rotting the US from the inside. If making your corporations the centre-piece of your country at the expense of everything else had a benefit for the country, then great. But it doesn't. It makes people unhappy. Dead kids coming back in body bags from Iraq. Assault weapons legally available for sale on the streets. No international environmental laws (like Kyoto), even though your country is getting pounded by hurricanes. Even little things, like being unable to copy your CDs to your iPod. It all stems from too much money corrupting the democratic process.
I never thought I'd say this, but I am looking forward to the day when China provides a counter-balance to the US's might. The Chinese goal of doing what's best for the state, as opposed to the new US goal since the end of the Cold War of doing what's best for the corporation, is probably going to be more world friendly than the present US position.
Ask yourself - since Bush has come to power, what positive or great thing has been achieved in the world? There's a mess in Iraq, a mess in Afghanistan, no Kyoto while the Florida Quays sinks under hurricanes, trade wars with Europe... he's leading your country, and with it the world, into disaster.
-- james
Wish I had mod points. All the more impressive considering the rather snarky comment it was replying to.
A few random observations:
- I don't think the "treatment of fame" issue is unique to politicians in the US; it seems to apply to business and media celebrities as well. I suspect it's a side-effect of the "Land of Opportunity" myth that's so pervasive in the US; if success is achieved (only) through talent and hard work, anybody with wealth/influence must automatically deserve it. (And, conversely, anybody without wealth or influence is either stupid or lazy and hence not worth bothering about.)
- I *do* worry that the problems seen in the US are at least partly a result of the concentration of power there relative to the size of the economy. Assuming for the sake of argument that all politicians everywhere are equally corrupt, a dollar spent bribing a US Congressman to pass a pro-corporate law will have a far greater payoff than the same dollar spent bribing a Dutch representative, so it stands to reason that corporations would invest a lot more time and money on manipulating the US. I'm generally in favour of European integration, but this issue does bother me. The EC's combined economy is bigger than the USA's; if policymaking becomes similarly concentrated, we can expect to see similar levels of lobbying. Look at the recent pressure on software patents, for example.
- I think you could have made more of the freedom of the press. The Reporters Without Borders 2003 report makes for interesting reading. The Netherlands are joint first for press freedom; the USA is at 31.
Incidentally, I live in the United Kingdom. Politically and socially we're somewhere in between the US and the Netherlands, but from here the Dutch extreme looks vastly more appealing.
Hi, Here's another answer from the Netherlands
Do you put reporters in jail when they write about political payoffs in the newspapers?
Of course not! It is even extremely rare that a reporter gets threatened by court to reveal his sources, and I can't offhand recall an instance where the reporter was actually forced to do that.
Do you have no corrupt politicians?
Of course we do - they're human, after all. But the other reply to your post makes clear what we do about them. Last cabinet formation it turned out that one potential sub-secretary of state had 'forgotten' to tell about her stint in the Surinam 'army' of Bouterse (check google - there's a lot of backstory). She now holds the record for shortest amount of time "in office".
-John
Unfortunately, the Dutch online political discourse is almost entirely monopolised by neo-cons who do their utmost best to shout down any dissenting viewpoint.
Just try even being moderately left-wing on an online forum these days. The funny bit is that by acting like this, the neo-cons set up an online media that is as biased in favour of the power elite as is the traditional media. I have seen Fortuyn supporters shout down dissent by effectively stating that ordinary citizens shouldn't have a say in politics, exactly the opposite of what he was preaching (and despite my own left leanings, I agree with Fortuyn's assessment of Dutch politics).
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Ok, last post for me in this thread, if you want to continue the discussion I suggest we take it to e-mail (the address is valid).
What worries me most is this: Fortuyn was an attack on the power elite coming from the right. He was fair in his attacks, both right-wing and left-wing politicians got rightly condemned for being more concerned about their own positions than about the state of the country (IOW acting like a typical power elite). Yet after his death, his successors and supporters have used the broad popularity of Mr. Fortuyn, not to destroy the power elite, but to become part of it themselves.
What saddens me most is to see the common people still blindly supporting these politicians, thinking that they are still standing up to the system, while the people are still being screwed.
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
So we have massive industry representation by the RIAA and MPAA (who might as well be the same thing) and they are represented in congress by a number of senators. So where the fuck are the people represented? Wheres the massive public backed union who says "fuck that, you stay out of my house"? the EFF? the ACLU? somehow I don't think the balance is very fair considering how senators work - money = influence. Its either time for a big public group or time to change the way politics works and move towards some sort of democratic system. (remember folks, democracy = '1 person 1 vote', not '1 dollar 1 vote')
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
As someone who was (and to an extent, still is) an American-ophile (is that a word?) the whole situation is really distressing me. The parent is right IMO about the problem beginning with the legal bribing of politicians.
I think the problems would almost entirely stop if the US banned political donations from corporations. The INDUCEs, the DMCAs, the targeted top end tax cuts, even the Iraq War.
I think you'll find that there are three categories of people on this matter. One, those that are informed, will completely agree with you. Sadly, most Americans are ignorant, uneducated, and wish to remain as such (which, to me, suggest the right to vote bar should be raised, because our current system is NOT what our forefathers intended. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Period.). Which is the second category. That is, the ignorant slobs, which happily ignore this, inspite of efforts to educate, because they simply don't care. And third, is the people that benefit from this corrupt system.
Long story short, there are two minorities that are involved here. One minority is the group that wants to stop this horrible form of "legal" corruption. The second minority are those in government which benefit from it. Sadly, it's the second group with all the power. This leaves the "unwashed masses" as our only hope. Needless to say, these are the people most easily swayed by the power of the corrupt beneficiaries.
And so, it's leaves us (Americans) in a horrible position. By allowing everyone in the US to vote, a lot of power was removed form the hands of the people that were purposely put in power to prevent this type of abuse. Originally land owners were the only ones with the right to vote. While I can't say that I think such a qualification is just, today, I can say that I believe there should be some such qualification required for the right to vote. In fact, I think it should be an earned privelege to the responsible rather than a given right. Liberty is something we must all work to ensure. It is not given. It is not free. Likewise, the right to vote should be entrusted to those that earn it. Exactly what earning the right should be, I can't say, but our current system is horribly corrupt and broken. No doubt about that. And the majority of our ignorant masses ensures that it stays that way.
In a day when companies have more rights than people and a select few wield more power than the "voting population", whereby, power has already been removed form the hands of the very people (the voting populas) that are supposed to balance the government and corrupt leaders, I can't see that my ideas are any worse. Heck, they actually are more inline with the principals our whole government was originally built on, than what we currently have today.
The problem with DRM When I was reading 1984 I always wondered how they could instantly change all the newspapers and constantly rewrite history and make it up to date. Since all the newspapers would have already been distributed. There would be traces left. A combined Hardware and software DRM seems to allow this. Since you are giving material to people without actually giving it to them, you can always change it. And distribution systems will definitely favor DRM instead of physical media because it is so much more 'convenient'. If a license to temporarily view something with various restrictions becomes the dominant form of ownership, freedom is definitely going down the tubes. It wouldnt be so much a dictatorship but the replacement of personal artifacts and memory by a culturally/centrally owned artifacts and memories. We wouldnt have a license to remember what we forgot. Pretty isn't it? "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever." 1984