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Lawmaker Revs Up Fair-Use Crusade
peipas writes "Wired News has posted an interview with Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA). In it he defends his stance in support of fair use and against the DMCA and other measures sought by the entertainment industry. The interview also touches on universal broadband and the recent overturning of the broadcast flag."
There's a little saying I like to pull out in times like this:
"You gotta do what you can with what you got."
It is as true as it is ungrammatical.
I read the internet for the articles.
So let media companies continue to abuse the American people and act as a de facto police force in order to expand the role of government in our lives? Funny - I want the government to protect me when large organizations are overstepping their authority. You respond by claiming the government shouldn't waste their time protecting the people but should instead expand their authority?
that isn't a puppet with the industry lobbyists hands jammed up his ass. Imagine what a world we'd be in if politicians used common sense and did what's right?
This is the guy that wants to trade the broadcast flag for our fair use rights. Our representatives shouldn't be trading one set of our rights in order to keep a right we already have. Fair use means nothing if everything is controlled with a broadcast flag and there is nothing for us to share.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
Cause Universal Health care sucks rocks?
"All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power." - Ashleigh Brilliant
How is this a troll?
Universal Healthcare does suck.
If people are to stupid too buy medical insurance but buy spinners for their car then I shouldn't be force to pay for insurance for them.
With the damage that intellectual monopoly rights cause to the economy, consumers and taxpayers it shouldnt be too hard to recruit supporters provided one uses the correct arguments.
Remember, intellectual monopoly rights are, in fact, monopoly rights and nothing else. They cause the same economic damage by diverting economic resources into inefficient organizations as any other monopolies.
Organizations that can fail to make a profit on a product that costs $10k to produce and will sell a million copies at $15 a pop shouldnt exist in a free market economy.
> Well, according to their math, every copy pirated is a sale lost, so they've "lost" trillions of dollars.
Yes, and that's silly. They make the assumption that increases in price don't affect demand. Then again, when you're talking about monopolies, they tend to think that way.
If the cost of the average CD went from $0.00 over a P2P network to $20.00 at the local mall, I wouldnt' buy the average CD. They don't seem to grasp the concept that demand and price have a generally inverse relationship.
The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Traditionally this sort of thing would have been done by a true (ie. not neoconservative) conservative Republican, fighting for the individual rights of the American citizenry.
I call BS.
Not since the 19th century has the republican party given hardly any thought to the individual rights or welfare of citizens.
I sure as hell dont remember hearing about the republican party being particularly active protecting civil rights of disenfranchised minorities during the sixties.
More accurately, Bouchers actions represent the type of actions that gave the Democratic party a reputation of being the champion of the 'little guy' in the first place.
Its too sad he is the exception rather than the rule, IMHO both the Republican and Democratice parties are essentially corporate whores these days.
Boucher is the free-speech side's token politician. He never actually manages to get anything through committee, and certainly never gets it passed, and he never actually intends to.
Rather, he's there to maintain the fiction of balance, and the hope of possibility of change for the better through the established political process. By doing so, he siphons off efforts which would be better put towards forcing change through other means, AND provides an excuse for fans of the system to tell those who are violating the laws to just simmer down and work through the political process.
Remember, he voted for the DMCA.
Any hope he'll also campaign more against TCPA & other DRM (Digital Restrictions Management)[1]?
[1] Maybe the industry sees those as "rights" but all I get on my end are restrictions. I suggest that others use that expansion of the acronym, too. I mean, no one can agree on what URL means any more after this (Universal? Uniform? Doesn't matter which one was right; the fact that too few know which is which is enough...)
I actually don't mind at all paying a reasonable price for a CD or a movie. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to have been duped into thinking and acting as though cable/satellite TV, CDs, movies and such are all absolutely essential for their existence.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Rick Boucher seems pretty smart about the issues until the very end, when he repeats the same industry bullshit lie, namely that "the only way that I think we are going to have high-value television programming delivered over the air in digital format is if the motion picture industry has some level of confidence that it's not going to get recorded and uploaded to the internet."
That is PURE bullshit for one simple reason: Broadcasters ARE currently delivering "high-value" content in HD format "over the air"!!!! You can't say that broadcasters won't do something unless we take action, WHEN THEY ARE FUCKING DOING IT RIGHT NOW!!!
That bullshit lie is just a ploy to get broadcast flags in place to make sure we have absolutely no fair use rights left.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Throwing your own cup of water into the passing flood hardly counts as "being particularly active". Neither does jumping on a bandwagon whose time has come.
.......Ya doesn't has to call me Johnson!
Yea, and the Democrats that voted against said bills switched parties. Remember the Dixiecrats?
To defend the concept of the Public Domain, you have to be against insane copyright extensions.
To be against insane copyright extensions you have to not take money and favors from those seeking to kill the Public Domain through insane copyright extensions.
What did you say your job was again, Sir?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Reasonably speaking, yes. The Digital Media Consumers Rights Act allows me to remove the broadcast flag for fair use.
Stealing one person's money, and giving it to someone else who didn't do anything to earn it?
I don't think that's a fair statement to make, though I sorta wish it were true. It implies that "traditional" Democrats don't/didn't fight for individual's rights. I think that most political parties have had their shining moments and great leaders. They also have their turkeys, who think that protecting rights involves things like PATRIOT act and arresting people for taking pictures of bridges. I'm just glad that *any* politician has the guts to stand up for what he believes is right. I wish there were more of them.
For what its worth, a wide release movie has already made money (well, most) by the time the DVD comes out.
The CD has to pay back for the entire cost of the production, since the revenues earned on tour dont go to the studio.
I still think its retarded tho. What the actual musicians make from the cost of that CD is tiny, and the money used to make the CDs is actually in the form of a loan the artist.
"Old man yells at systemd"