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Biden Promises 'Right Person' As Copyright Czar
Hugh Pickens writes "Vice President Joe Biden lauded Hollywood at a gala dinner in Washington, assailed movie piracy, and promised film executives that the Obama administration would pick 'the right person' as its copyright czar. Biden warned of the harms of piracy at the private event organized by the Motion Picture Association of America in the sumptuous, newly renovated Great Hall of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. 'It's pure theft, stolen from the artists and quite frankly from the American people as consequence of loss of jobs and as a consequence of loss of income,' Biden said, according to a White House pool report. Biden addressed President Obama's forthcoming decision about who will be named the intellectual-property enforcement coordinator, better known as the copyright czar. Under a law approved by the US Congress last October, Obama is required to appoint someone to coordinate the administration's IP enforcement efforts and prepare annual reports. Copyright industry lobbyists sent a letter to the president asking him to pick someone sympathetic to their concerns, while groups that would curb copyright law sent their own letter (PDF) urging the opposite approach. We 'will find the right person for intellectual property czar,' Biden said."
Lawrence Lessig
The way things have gone so far with this admin I figure that the only right person in there eyes will be someone like this Dan Glickman, head of the MPAA,
The Navy Motto "IF it ain't broke Fix It" "A day is wasted if you don't learn something new"
An ex, cough, current RIAA attourney without any doubt...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Let the excuse-making begin.
It's kind of sad to see that despite all the progressive politics that Obama and Biden embody, that they're following Hollywood's line to the letter. I'd like to see some specific language from them on exactly what they think about the proper length of copyright terms -- the current terms lasting a century or more are absurd.
Lessig took the wrong approach in arguing Eldred v. Ashcroft before the Supreme Court. While the frequent extensions to copyright obviously violate the spirit of the Constitution, they don't violate the letter, since century-plus durations are still technically "limited." What does violate the letter of the Constitution is that these extensions do not "promote the Progress" of science and arts, but rather retard them. Past a certain length, copyright terms don't create any additional encouragement to create; they just make it easier for huge corporations to monopolize our common culture.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
The loss of income by some Americans due to copyright infringement is exactly made up for by the savings of the Americans who don't pay for the copyrighted works. It's a complete and total wash as far as the domain that can be affected by American legislation and law enforcement. I'm for copyrights of a limited term (say, 20 years) and this still sickens me.
One of the big things that bothers me is that the american entertainment industry is such a tiny part of the economy. IBM is worth much more than any of the entertainment companies -- five times all of Sony or Time-Warner, for example -- but you don't see congress and the president trying to fuck over every citizen in IBM's name. It's a completely corrupt effort, even though copyrights can serve a good purpose.
"It's pure theft..." but when Disney takes the creation of Steven Lisberger, that's ok, because they own that, so it's not really theft. Corporations have "intellectual property" because they have buying power. Apparently the artists they hire have no intelligence, because they sell their creativity rights for the access to the medium.
How so? I didn't realize copyright law enforcement was a particularly partisan issue in the United States. Both parties, and most of the general populace, including (perhaps especially) Slashdot, are rather clueless about copyright law.
Is it possible that we wouldn't be downloading everything there ever was, if we had grown up in a world where copyrights were limited in any meaningful sense?
Hollywood, in general, tends to support the left more than the right. Consequently, my guess would be that the nominee would be someone who tends to favor Hollywood's interest, so Hollywood campaign contributions to the Democratic Party continue at current or higher levels.
I could be wrong about my guess, though.
The right person for the job will know which battles are winnable, and which battles aren't.
The right person for the job will recognize that intellectual property holders are going to be more effective at combating user vs. corporation-style IP infringements by expanding access. This person will attempt to foment an environment in which it is reasonable for powerful IP holders to aggressively pursue this objective.
The right person for the job will focus enforcement efforts on businesses (e.g., pirated software) rather than living-room pirates, since the former can likely be widely-enforced, whereas the latter can't.
The right person for the job will seek to reform the patent system, and adopt a relatively narrow view of what IP entails.
The right person for the job will see his or her role as more along the lines of facilitating and educating, than as a law enforcement agent, or, worse, a corporate shill.
The right person for the job will be able to come up with witty comebacks to the TPB staff's bizarre antics.
Also, the right person for the job will probably still be widely reviled here. But that's okay, too.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
What is this, Russia?
I understand your reason for lack of concern. But hear MY concern. During the MPAA's pursuit against piracy the freedoms of the internet will be trampled on :( So sure they won't catch 99% of all pirates but that doesn't mean we won't see federal legislation requiring ISP's to log records, even more powerful DMCA, and other such bullshit along the way. I have hopes that we'll win though. There are more of us and we are smarter. But casualties along the way will occur and that saddens me.
So is the administration stealing from toilet paper companies when they use the constitution to wipe their asses?
If the choice is between having the president a puppet of
A) the Oil Industry and the Defense Industry
B) the RIAA and MPAA
Then I would definitely choose B.
Its relatively easy to fight the RIAA and MPAA on my own or just ignore them, compared to the Oil and Defense...
Vice President Joe Biden lauded Hollywood at a gala dinner in Washington, assailed movie piracy, and promised film executives that the Obama administration would pick "the right person" as its copyright czar.
In response, we promise to implement "the right protocol" to circumvent whatever the czar tries to do.
Hollywood, in general, tends to support the left more than the right.
It does neither. "Hollywood", for lack of a better term, is a business. Pretty much everything they do is predicated on making money, like any other business.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
...sit back, relax, and see who gets the post.
We, as a consumer group, do have the power to stop RIAA and MPAA cold. How? Stop listening to music on the radio, don't buy any new CDs (used is fine), turn off your TV (and cable/sat/uverse), and don't go to the movies. It will take only about six months to completely destroy RIAA and MPAA if as few as 20% of the people do this.
The real problem as I see it is that very few of you want to be rid of the RIAA and MPAA, you just don't like how they do business. That's fine, I don't like how they do business myself. That's why I don't have cable or sat, I don't listen to music on the radio, I don't go to movies, I don't buy movies or CDs....
Put up or shut up folks. It's fine to complain, but do something about it, why don't you? The copyright cartels are paying the politicians far more than we do, and they're doing it with money we pay them. Quit paying them money to abridge your rights and desires.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Please, let me inflame: Are you so left that the rest of us look like center?
Hollywood is a business. It is also very liberal in its views.
Does anyone else find it disturbing we now have people in the US gov't we refer to as "czars"? WTF.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Suckered? Not particularly. I knew Obama wasn't perfect when I voted for him. I knew Hollywood and copyright issues in general was one where I wouldn't like him much. I also believed (and still do) the the other options weren't particularly better on this front. This really isn't a partisan issue, despite people on both the D and R sides of the aisle pretending it is.
Angry? Certainly. This is a bad policy (well, technically so far it only appears to foreshadow such). Copyright in our country is badly broken, and things that will make it worse make me angry, like many slashdotters.
Disappointed? Yes, somewhat. I had hoped things would be better than this. I didn't expect them to, and there was no rational basis for that hope. But if you stop hoping for a better future, then very quickly you'll stop working for it. And once you stop working for a better future, you're in deep trouble indeed. So I had hope that things will improve, and I was disappointed. I still have hope that things will improve.
Regretful? No. I don't want to be an Obama apologist: he's making a mistake here. Please, take him to task for it. Write angry letters, shout from the rooftops, and get us a decent copyright policy. I'm with you on that one. But please don't act like I was an idiot for voting for an imperfect candidate, or pretending that for some reason I have to either support or oppose everything he does as a single block. I'm capable of agreeing with him on some things and disagreeing on others, and I've basically gotten the candidate I thought I voted for, for better *and* for worse.
I rather suspect I'm not the only one.
Yeah, so it turns out that absent any major concern on the part of the electorate, politicians listen to the people who talk to them the loudest - folks with money to lobby them. And while this site is chock full of people who like to write righteous screeds about the injustices of copyright law, most people in the US don't give a shit about copyright law.
Let me repeat that: most people in the US don't give a shit about copyright law.
They don't know, don't pay attention, haven't had it be a problem for them, and don't care. Go and ask your parents, or your non-tech savvy siblings, or whomever else. Most, if not all of them, won't know or care. And the reason for that is because nearly all the people that do care spend their time writing righteous screeds about it on Slashdot.
If you want to make a difference, sure - complain about it, but not here. Complain about it to your congresscritters; but not just them - you've got to make other people give a shit, and that means talking to someone who's not here to listen to the preaching at choir practice.
If normal people start giving a shit, politicians will change their tune, because that's how politics works. So get the fuck off Slashdot and go talk to regular people who don't know and don't care, and inform them and get them to give a shit. It does matter, and you can convince people that it matters. But you have to actually do some work.
Are you joking? The archeologist must have copyright then.
DMCA was authored, introduced, had almost UNANIMOUS support from the pubs, with split support from the house dems. But the one that it is attributed to is Clinton. I love the rewrites of history that goes on ALL THE TIME.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You seem to be operating under the assumption that a bad law can't cause a lot of damage.
Kids are being extorted for thousands by the RIAA.
Old movies and other pieces of our culture are rotting away because they're still under copyright and no one can recover them.
Countries are considering laws to remove your internet privileges for file sharing.
People are having to waste countless time and resources fighting them and working around the laws.
And we don't even know what great technologies the law has stopped. The next YouTube? The next Google?
Jumping through a few loops to play DVDs on Linux is the least of our worries, these laws could get a lot worse, and they will if whichever RIAA lackey Obama appoints gets his way.
Just because they can't win doesn't mean we don't lose.
I stole this Sig
Tell that to Stalin, Lenin or Putin... a czar is still a czar even if they want to be called something else.
"Vice President Joe Biden lauded Hollywood at a gala dinner in Washington, assailed movie piracy, and promised film executives that the Obama administration would pick "the right person" as its copyright czar."
----- The right person for *who*? THAT is the real question people should be asking.
The 'right person' for the people, or the RIAA and MPAA?
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
I'm sure the "occasional grandmother or soccer mom" that was bankrupted cares about this very much.
How did having Czars become in vogue? It was a dirty word 20 years ago.
If a "Czar" stepped foot into Washington DC, Rambo would have shot 'em while Chuck kicked 'em in the back.
But back to the point... Wow, 2 articles in a row about big bad piracy (previous was the poor PSP). A few days after TPB gang gets $1mil + 1yr in jail.
At least the next story is about a GIANT bot net, not that that is "good". It's just more interesting than this tired rag.
The distributors screw'd the pooch when they squashed Napster. If they would have monetized our old-friend, they would have gotten bonuses bigger than ___________.
Give me a break, produce/sell more at a lower price and make it up in volume.
It's lemonade stand economics.
I would go to more than ~1 movie/year if it didn't cost 15 - 20 bucks per person. I feel soo bad for families.
I find this concept from the article ironic,
"It's pure theft, stolen from the artists and quite frankly from the American people...."
The distributor is the one that really looses with most piracy (software excluded). Artists are just slaves to the whole system as we are.
It is pathetic how much favor is being given to the system(s) that make profit. I think this trend has really accelerated in the past 20 - 30 years. Where's Rambo and Chuck when you need them.
I thought fascism would smell different.
"Seriously, when has BIG Oil and Defense sued thousands of kids on the basis of intellectual property (non-tangible resource)?"
I bet there are thousands of kids who would have *wished* they would have been sued by the entertainment industry, rather than killed by the implements of the 'defense' industry to support the interests of the oil industry.
Being sued probably sucks, being bombed probably sucks more.
it is one thing to steal music to entertain yourself (and we can argue all day about whether file sharing is copyright infringement or fair use) but it is a _completely_ different story to steal something and then try to resell/market it as your own. At least if you aren't paying for use of some creative work, you are at least appreciating it for its greatness. Trying to pass off someone else' IP as your own obfuscates the true brilliance of the creator, making it more difficult for someone else to recognize and purchase their work. Biden has absolutely no moral authority to talk about the theft of IP. http://www.slate.com/id/2198597/
This is almost as annoying as hearing Al Gore talk about taking the initiative in "creating the Internet" I'd be amazed if Al Gore knew enough about the Internet to explain the difference between TCP and UDP.
Serial IP thieves should should never lecture the masses on the dangers of Filesharing.
Since the Wikipedia article is devoid of any reference to the founders of the US, I'd be curious to know on what you base your thesis. Personally, it seems to me that the founders of the US wanted the government to be weaker than the power of the masses, because of their previous experience under British rule (making them distrust government in general).
After reading much of Franklin, Madison, and Jefferson I have come to the same conclusion as you. The Wikipedia article actually goes through one aspect that, yes, the founders did want to avoid. This is only one aspect, however and is why we were originally set up as a republic and not a democracy, which is what we have been slowly turning into.
The constitution was set up to be a limiting power of the federal government which concept seems to have been turned on its ear over the course of a long period of time. The bill of rights was also originally intended to be a further limitation on government regardless of how those sent to represent us decide to look at it.
How often do you hear the phrase "The constitution is out of date" from one side or the other? I hear it from both sides of the isle, so it isn't a D vs. R thing. If there is something they don't like, they blatantly ignore what is written in their guiding document. How many of the amendments (post bill-of-rights) actually erase parts of the constitution?
How often do election campaigns border on being unconstitutional as the fear card is played on religion where the constitution states in Article 6, "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." Yet we hear things like, "He is a Jew" (Lieberman), "He is a born-again nut job" (Bush Jr.), "He was a Muslim" (Obama).
I'll finish my rant now with just the thought that we are all in this together and until we come together we will be a house divided against itself, and we will not stand.
I have two words for people who ask me if I regret voting for Big Brother: Emmanuel Goldstein.
or maybe
I have two words for people who ask me if I regret voting for George Bush: bin Laden.
Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
It's the big publishers who are stealing from the American people. The books, movies, music my grandmother experienced as a child is STILL locked away under copyright. The song I recently made an MP3 of from an original record recording, about the great depression, is still under copyright.
Our very history has been stolen from us by big publishing. They've lobbied the public domain out of existence. As long as the laws are as unjust as they are, the big publishing industry is my enemy, for stealing 50-100 years of my culture for profit.
It's been a long time.
I had no expectation that either party would act to lessen the power of copyright. I rather expect, if the question comes up at all, they are rationalizing that strong copyright encourages more creativity by allowing people to live on enjoy the fruits of their labor. The fact that the "stronger copyright" stance enjoys such wide support is probably a reflection of this. Free access to and use of information appeals primarily to "intellectuals" and "academics" not acting directly in the commercial markets (although even academia seems to be getting into the IP business these days) and neither of those groups under most reasonable definitions is a major voting block or large percentage of the population.
It might be argued that open source movements are a backlash against over-application or poor definition of copyright, but despite the movement's successes it still remains a niche in terms of overall impact and support. There are even people who consider the very existence of the movement a Bad Thing, and they get to vote too.
It's not a rosy picture, and probably won't be for a loooong time. However, there is one ray of hope that someone up there has a clue - look at http://www.whitehouse.gov/copyright/ The presence of a Creative Commons license for whitehouse.gov content that has had copyright assigned to the government by 3rd parties must be taken as a hopeful sign.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Let's see if you're right.
According to OpenSecrets.org, Obama got $8,599,038 from the "TV/movies/music" industry.
Clinton for $3,320,048 from the same source.
McCain got %1,105,150 from them.
So, "Hollywood" gave the two major Democrat contenders over ten times as much as they gave the major Republican contender. And even the number two Dem got three times as much as the number one Rep (and more than ALL Republican candidates combined), much less the number one candidate (who, incidently, got almost twice as much as all other candidates (Republican and Democrat) combined.
Yes, if you include ALL of the candidates, Hollywood only gave the Dems about six times as much as they gave Reps. But even a six to one ratio suggests some slight bias in favour of one side or the other, don't you think?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"