Slashdot Mirror
Democrat Win May Be Good News For Internet Policy
Null Nihils writes "Following the pivotal U.S. Midterm elections, things look hopeful for a free and open Internet, but the likelihood of progress in terms of copyright and privacy legislation is still uncertain. At any rate, it isn't hard to see a shift in U.S. information technology policy coming over the horizon. Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), strong supporters for Net Neutrality, will most likely take command of Internet policy, but Democrat commitments regarding privacy, data retention, and digital copyright have yet to be made certain. A C|Net article discusses the likely shift in priorities at Capitol Hill. 'If (Democrat Rick) Boucher gets the nod as chairman, a broadcast flag becomes far less likely and changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention sections become politically feasible ... If Rep. Howard Berman, however, gets the job, the recording industry and motion picture industry will have a staunch ally as subcommittee chairman.'"
Look here:
p e=industryNews&storyID=2006-11-09T091511Z_01_N0945 8311_RTRIDST_0_INDUSTRY-DEMOCRATS-DC.XML
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?ty
"I'm trying to contain my joy," MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman told The Hollywood Reporter.
Look at the fact--Rep. John Conyers take over Judiciary. You can say 'Boucher is great, or Berman is bad' but they are minor players compared to Conyers and the power of the chairmanship (Conyers was the author of the 'analog hole' bill along with a host of other bidding on behalf of the RIAA).
Stop drinking the Kool-aid. This was no better a result than the previous crowd staying in control...
Sure, signed into law. All that means is that he didn't consider it important enough to veto, as a lame duck President. I was introduced in the House by Howard Coble (R-NC) and passed by a Republican controlled House and a Republican Senate.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
committee in the senate.
I think we can all be happy about that.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
Re: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=205785&cid =16788711
Why is Slashdot so damn US-centric? Are does anyone else outside the USA really care for the political propaganda crap on Slashdot?
Yeah, just last week I went to slashdot.co.de and complained about how German-central their political coverage was. It was especially true in terms of technology. Even though Germany was the principal founder of the internet, and also still the controlling force for some aspects through its dominance of ICANN, that isn't right. Plus, given Germany's strong global presence, even though they use their political and economic weight to lead or dictate policies across the globe, none of that means they should be talking about politics on a web site based in their country written in their language.
Certainly not on a website devoted to technology, especially one with a subcategory called "Politics" that can be disabled by any viewer who wishes to not see those type of stories.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I consider myself very technologically savvy, have been working in IT for 15 years, 10 of those in networking, and I've honestly never understood why people deride the politician that made the "tubes" analogy so much. Isn't the analogy of tubes or pipes fairly accurate to describe the Internet's physical infrastructure? What's so weird about that? Someone please explain it, I honestly want to know. Thanks in advance.
Out of context - the comment seems about as funny as a random line from Monty Python. The speech Senator Stevens gave was a halting, rambling affair that maintained an amazingly consistent level of anger/passion. He made numerous statements that belied a decidedly uninformed perspective on e-mail, e-commerce, and the internet at large.
The now infamous comment; "it's a series of tubes!" came at the end of a diatribe about how the "internet" that his staff had sent him last Friday was, apparently, clogged up with all the movies being offered by commercial operators. The statement was delivered with such gusto, such conviction that you swear the old fella truly believed they were a bunch of literal tubes.
Was it a technically sound statement, in and of itself? Perhaps...but it seems clear from the rest of the speech that it was more Clouseau than Sherlock.
That's comedy.
Running Windows^H^H^H^H^H^H^H OSX and Linux in the home. (I don't have time for Solitaire any more.)
First of all the headline is wrong. It's 'Democratic', not 'Democrat'. Your grammar is worse than mine, and mine is pretty bad.
But as far as internet policy concerns, it's hard to say what will change. The Democrats are generally better with small business, as the Republicans tend to favor the big donor moneyed set, so we'll see a bit more promotion of competition and open access to the "tubes" and such. Nasdaq tech companies certainly did much better in the 1990s then they have recently.
But are they going to favor changing copyright law and such? Doubtful. I hope they can roll back patent changes that allowed patenting of business processes and such, we'll see.
Honestly though, with the fucking mess Bush has created with our foreign policy, I doubt there's going to be much time spent on these types of low-priority domestic issues. It's going to be Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, some Afghanistan, and more Iraq for the next two years until we finally pull out of the Bush Folly.
I can't figure out why it's so hard for people to get this straight. I suppose the person who composed the title of the post and the author of the quoted piece may not be American citizens. Just for clarification, there is no "Democrat Party". A Democrat is a member of the Democratic Party.
... If Rep. Howard Berman, however, gets the job, the recording industry and motion picture industry will have a staunch ally as subcommittee chairman.'"
[Democratic] Win May Be Good News For Internet Policy
Posted by Zonk on 2006.11.09 15:50
from the little-from-column-a-little-from-column-b dept.
[ The Internet ] [ Politics ] [ Your Rights Online ]
Null Nihils writes "Following the pivotal U.S. Midterm elections, things look hopeful for a free and open Internet, but the likelihood of progress in terms of copyright and privacy legislation is still uncertain. At any rate, it isn't hard to see a shift in U.S. information technology policy coming over the horizon. Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), strong supporters for Net Neutrality, will most likely take command of Internet policy, but [Democratic Party] commitments regarding privacy, data retention, and digital copyright have yet to be made certain. A C|Net article discusses the likely shift in priorities at Capitol Hill. 'If (Democrat Rick) Boucher gets the nod as chairman, a broadcast flag becomes far less likely and changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention sections become politically feasible
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
... and sent to Clinton by a Republican Congress.
Let's hope the Democratic Congress can be the agent for change here.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!