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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."
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
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.
Yea, and the Democrats that voted against said bills switched parties. Remember the Dixiecrats?
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"