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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
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
"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.
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?
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.
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.
...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.
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.
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.
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.