Would John Kerry Defang the DMCA?

dave981 writes "Over at ZDNet, Declan McCullagh asks, 'Would John Kerry defang the DMCA?' Kerry's response: 'open to examining' whether to change current law 'to ensure that a person who lawfully obtains or receives a transmission of a digital work may back up a copy of it for archival purposes.' It's not clear, though, how serious Kerry truly is."

Comments

Ambiguous as usual

[gnu-sucks]

It's not clear, though, how serious Kerry truly is

Is this supposed to be news?

Re:No differnces?

[osu-neko]

I think they both believe the sky is blue, too! Really, they agree about nearly everything!

(Someone hand me the cluestick, I need to beat someone...)

Irony

[gregarican]

It's ironic that the verb "defang" is used here. Especially since Mr. Kerry looks like Frankenstein's monster after a pancake and mascara session.

Summit!!

[TheConfusedOne]

Hey, Kerry can call a summit on the DMCA. He can hold it in Cambodia with the UNSC.

If the above statement is confusing to you then ask around.

Re:Not "would" but "could"...

[kesler]

Hell Bush has wiped out entire constitutional amendments, what's a law?

Re:No differnces?

[b-baggins]

OK. I was going to mod, but I couldn't pass this one up.

Bush on the price of oil: We need to improve domestic production, build more refineries, open up ANWAR, and resume drilling in the gulf.

Kerry on the price of oil: We need to negotiate with OPEC, reduce energy consumption, pump tax dollars into alternative energy sources.

Bush on terrorism: We need to kill them.

Kerry on terrorism: We need to get France and Germany involved and put them in jail.

Bush on Social Security: We need to move it toward individual private accounts.

Kerry on Social Security: We need to keep it exactly the way it is now and pray it doesn't collapse before I've served my two terms.

Bush on Health Care: We need to push for more market forces in the health care industry so competition can drive prices down.

Kerry on Health Care: We need to nationalize our health care system so we can all get on waiting lists like in Canada.

Re:Geek Vote?

[oooooops]

and at the same time how do you vote on the death penalty? right because a man has never been sentenced to death being innocent right?

if you base your entire vote on a single issue you have a very narrow view of the world. and if you believe that a 16 year old rape victim should be forced to have a child - it's a warped view at that. i bet you believe rush limbaugh never did drugs either, after he repeatedly talked about how drug uers were "losers"

and i bet gay marriage is the other important issue ofr you - because let's face it what someone else does in their own bedroom is a matter of the government.

you righties like to use the phrase "a mind that's too open causes your brain to fall out" - i'd like to mention that a mind that's to closed will shrivel up & die with no growth

Re:A little focus, please.

[jayteedee]

"I for one, feel that Kerry indicating that the DCMA may be opened for examination is a positive point."
That's because your a sheep (or young and inexperienced). Politicians through this line out all the time to make them seem like they're in the middle of the road. Same thing as when Kerry is shown in TV ads toting a shotgun as if he were out hunting. The NRA already knows he has voted against them each and every time. It might fool some of the sheep, but it won't fool those who know his true character.

"the possibilty of the American Union crumbling if one or the other is elected"
It is a possibility. It has already happened back in, oh, about 1860. It won't be because of the DCMA, but the Patriot act, abortion, and gays might actually push the country in that direction. When a large group of people find something morally reprehensible, it is just a matter of time before they act. If the political methods don't prevail(courts and congress in this case), people always resort back to war as the final solution.

Re:Geek Vote?

[Doc Ruby]

Anonymous francophobe Coward, Turkey wants a lot more than just killing Turkish Kurds. EU membership brings lots of stability that keeps other members' borders intact, despite dividing historical communities into separate nations. Greece has seen once-perpetual Cypriot warfare fizzle since Greece entered the Union, to the point where Cyprus itself has moved into it. Canada's Anglophones are hardly a 51st state of the US, though their economic integration does make that wisecrack seem funny. Statecraft harnesses people's selfdetermination to build stable states from within. That might not seem butch enough to you, Anonymous tunnelvision Coward, but it's how we built our own state, and how every other people got theirs.

Re:kerry voted for it...

[Greenisloved]

Some times, such as announcing to Saddam that he had to allow unfettered nuclear inspector access by a certain date or face military action, you have to follow through, even if you change your mind (which I doubt Bush did), just so people know you mean business.
Mr.Tanktalus , is it okay if you were born as iraqi and have ur home bombed , parents killed , sister and brother murdered and you are limping.oh btw , it is because BUsh is so consistent that he continues doing wrong even though he knows it is wrong.This kinda attitude may try to cover up wrong deeds, i bet all those wrong actions will have backlash for sure.Its not business,its a matter of Morality to fight the war.Think of 15000 civilians killed , will you be happy if you were iraqi????

Re:Geek Vote?

[scotch]

Saddam would still be struggling with UN sanctions

Interesting definition of struggling. Saddam had pocketed over $11 billion via the "oil for food" scandal. Clearly you have not read into the Duelfer report which clearly stated that Saddam's goal was to contiunally wear down the sanctions through bribery and political manipulation.

If you think this is the only or even a significant measure of the net costs of the UN sanctions on Saddam's regime you are sadly mistaken. How much is $11B compared with the economic cost of the sanctions? How much is that compared to what he takes in from other sources (i.e. is it a triffle or something significant)? Where's the rest of the data? Ignorance or spin, strictfoo? I'm sure Saddam had lots of goals. Wearing down the UN machinery is one of them. Perhaps he also had the goal of world domination. Who cares? More improtant is realistic threat. Saddam was so contained that it's not even funny. What is funny is listening to people paint him as this huge threat to the US and the world - even knowing what we do now about his capabilities - such delusion and revisionism.

From 1991 to 2003, he made no measurable headway on it. But I'm sure at any minute, he was going to become Nuclear capable.

From the report (yes, the same one that many of the leftist editorialists used to attack Bush):

"Saddam's primary goal from 1991 to 2003 was to have UN sanctions lifted, while maintaining the security of the Regime. He sought to balance the need to cooperate with the UN inspections -- to gain support for lifting the sanctions -- with his intention to preserve Iraq's intellectual capital for WMD with a minimum of foreign intrusiveness and loss of face."

Neither you nor the report refutes what I said. Saddam made no measureable headway in his nuclear arms program from 1991 to 2003. If preserving intellectual capital (funny term) for WMD is justification for armed invasion, you're going to need to deploy your troops to countries, libraries, physics departments, and commercial labs around the world. Are you really arguing that "his intention to preserve Iraq's intellectual capital for WMD" somehow refutes the statement that he made no headway on his nuclear program? Or that vague, barely-measurable statement justfies war? Are you for real?

An average of 32,000 Iraqis were killed per year under Saddam including tens (if not hundreds) of thousands during the years where he was "struggling with UN sanctions"

I'd like to see a source for those numbers.

Here's a question for you, if we weren't in Iraq, and the terrorists weren't coming into Iraq to fight us, what would Zarqawi and his friends be doing? Knitting? Playing squash?

Why are you asking me? Are you implying that Iraq was the only alternative - that if we hadn't gone in to destabilize that country, we would have done nothing to find and incapacitate terrorists, instead? You're the one with the crystal ball. It is my firm belief that US actions in Iraq will contribute to a net increase in anti-US terrorism.

I apologize for the "party-felating" comment.

What A Crook

[he-sk]

The first part of the article is so utter bullshit. It's either pure propaganda or Declan McCullagh is totally out of his mind. I stopped reading any further.

Re:Geek Vote?

[Doc Ruby]

It's no coincidence that Bush is totally wrong on every one of those issues, including the DMCA (which he'd be wrong on if he knew anything about it, or could understand its longer words). He's the corporate figurehead candidate, and that's a complete package of badness for Americans. While Kerry, a live, if duller, human, is more complex. With Kerry we get the good with the bad. With Bush we get more of the same bad with the bad, and some new bad once he doesn't have reelection campaigning hanging over his head.

Re:DCMA

[ari_j]

In 20 years in the Senate, Kerry has written 11 bills, all of them junk "feel-good" resolutions to name weeks or days things or save the whales. If he hasn't gotten anything done in 20 years in the Senate, how can you expect his massive, secret, unexplained plan to succeed in 4 years in the White House?

How can you balance the budget but provide national health care (an arguably bad idea if you look at countries whose standard of care has gone down as a result thereof)? Ah, yes. Raising taxes. Kerry and Heinz have paid less than 13% income taxes the past two years. Sheerly by contrast, the Bush family has paid over 30%.

Kerry is also guilty of treason. This is a legal thing based on the definition of treason as established in the Constitution and through case law since then and admissions Kerry has made about his activities in Paris after his grueling four months in Vietnam (yes, that's sarcasm - you get to choose between the guy who didn't go and the guy who wet his pants and came home to use it for political purposes). The short version is that both sides Kerry was talking to in Paris were Communist.

Kerry is a vocal enemy of the Constitution. Bush, on the other hand, is a silent enemy of the Constitution, and that's scary. He's also in favor of "tort reform," which is another way of saying "no, you can't sue big businesses for hurting or killing you out of sheer negligence."

I wish I could, in good conscience, vote for anyone in this election. Sadly, I can't. Even Badnarik comes up short, although he's far better than any previous Libertarian candidate I can remember.

Re:Geek Vote?

[Rayonic]

So getting the UN to fix or drop OFF would have terminated Hussein

Ah yes, because the United Nations and the Europeans were going to repeal a crooked program they were profitting mightily off of.

Newsflash: Saddam Hussein was, rather successfully, bribing people to support lifting the sanctions altogether. That you would put so much faith into such thoroughly bought-off people is, to say the least, naive.

As for deciding to go into Iraq as part of the greater War of Terror, George W. Bush was hardly the only person to suggest it. Quote:

I have no doubt, I've never had any doubt -- and I've said this publicly -- about our ability to be successful in Afghanistan. We are and we will be. The larger issue, John, is what happens afterwards. How do we now turn attention ultimately to Saddam Hussein? How do we deal with the larger Muslim world? What is our foreign policy going to be to drain the swamp of terrorism on a global basis?

-- John Kerry, November 16, 2001

Also, Iraq elections are on track, (amongst other news).