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Who Will Obama Choose As Copyright Czar?
seanpark writes "Who will President Elect Obama select for the recently established post of Copyright Czar? Biden has a longstanding relationship with Big Content, and he was partly responsible for the PRO-IP Act that created the position. The short list according to the article includes a few lobbyists (who would likely be disqualified by stringent ethical guidelines) and Lawrence Lessig, who was a technology adviser to the Obama Campaign."
Of having lessig on his team. Lets hope he still has that now that he is heading to The House.
NO SIG
I feel you have a point. But I feel the first question we need to ask is will this position have any real power. Because if there is no real power then who care who is picked.
I see it going down one of two ways. 1. Obama is able to use the capital that he has gained an push this through rather quickly and having congress act as a rubber stamp.
2. There are bigger priorities than this in the Obama administration (economy, war). As a result this is placed on the back burner. Corporate interests therefore have more time to react and press members of congress to vote against making a copyright czar have any real power. As a result this initiative dies or must be used as a bargaining chip once things get harder to push through congress.
I think we should not be asking who he will chose yet, but rather how large of a priority is he going to make this.
I, despite not being American (but I do live nearby), nominate Ray Beckerman (NewYorkCountryLawyer). He seems to have lots of relevant experience in this field.
Any seconds?
Isn't that enough? On the other hand, czars are important for bureaucratic rationalization: drug policy requires a lot of cooperation between federal law enforcement, state/local law enforcement, the medical system, foreign interdiction efforts etc. (assuming you accept drug control policy is rational, which it isn't. I think the idea of the drug tsar gives tsars a bad name. Aside from the original tsars, that is.)
The main problem with interdepartmental plenipotentiaries, or "Tsars" if you will, is they don't really have any authority: they're supposed to be the expert in the field and know more about how to do the job than anyone, but they're beholden to the existing baize cloth routine and can't make people do anything without the president's personal intervention. Even if Larry Lessig was a "Copyright Tsar," all he could do is talk shop with Obama about what should happen and then testify to congress a lot. He might have a voice in the appointment of FCC commissioners, and in copyright office policies, but he can always be overruled by a law.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I'm not so sure about RMS. Yes, I agree with most of what he says, but not how he says it, and he comes across as a nutter to the non-techie public, and most of the techie community as well.
Besides we'll have him refusing to read emails that are sent from an insufficiently free *GNU*/Linux distribution.
IIRC, you have it in reverse: the entertainment industry wants a strong copyright czar.
Strong when in their interests, not against them.
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Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
He's a wise choice, a rational voice is a sea of stupidity.
Lessig is a very moderate voice. While he generally opposes copyright term extension, he supports DRM. He feels that people who say copyright law is utterly broken are extremist. He seems to think that the current scope of fair use provisions is adequate and just needs to be better respected. He feels that "something like the DMCA that protects adequate space for fair use and doesn't attempt to regulate technology directly is needed." (http://lwn.net/2001/features/LawrenceLessig.php3)
I have a lot of respect for the man but you can't meet the extremism of Big Media with moderates willing to compromise. The DMCA should be dumped and language written into the law the specifically protects reverse engineering. Fair use provisions should be expanded to reflect that way we use media in our lives and to provide better protection for educational use.
We don't need a moderate - we need somebody who will make dramatic changes to re-align the law with common sense.
How is appointing a lunatic with an opposite bent to Hollywood's going to result in the law being re-aligned with common sense?
What you're proposing will result in no reform whatsoever. It'll result in gridlock, with the current law, warts and all, continuing to rule the land unchanged and unchangeable.
What's needed is a moderate voice. Just because Lessig isn't a lunatic doesn't mean he's going to somehow compromise with lunatics on the other side. It means he'll be a respected voice that can shout down the extremists on the Hollywood end and propose reforms that will be taken seriously.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.