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How the Obama Copyright Policies Might Unfold
An anonymous reader points out a column by James Boyle, who knows a thing or two about copyright, analyzing the Obama Administration's policy choices about intellectual property and high tech. "Traditionally, Democratic administrations take their copyright policy direct from Hollywood and the recording industry. Unfortunately, so do Republican administrations. The capture of regulators by the industry they regulate is nothing new, of course, but in intellectual property there is the added benefit that incumbents can frequently squelch competing technologies and business methods before they ever come into existence. ... The Obama administration's warm embrace of Silicon Valley, and Silicon Valley's checkbook, had given some hope that this pattern would change — and I think it will. Now, instead of taking copyright policy direct from the media conglomerates (who, after all, have a very legitimate point of view — even if not the only point of view) it is quite likely that the administration will construct it as a contract between content companies and high-technology companies such as Google. In some places, citizens and consumers will probably benefit, simply because optimizing for the interests of two economic blocs rather than one is likely to give us a slightly more balanced, and less technology-phobic, set of rules. And perhaps the administration will go further. But recent actions make me doubt that this is the case."
Obama was elected thanks to the media. They're the ones who refused to cover anyone except Obama, they're the ones who forced the Democratic Party to skip the part of their convention where they count delegates' votes, they're the ones who completely ignored Ron Paul's existence and went out of their way to paint McCain as a senile old man and Palin as a crazy country bumpkin.
Obama owes the media, and you'll bet they'll collect.
meet the new boss, same as the old boss...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
It the MPAA/RIAA have a legitimate point of view, then I can barely comprehend what illegitimate is.
They have paid for legislation and administration policy. To want your paid-for laws to be enforced is not a "legitimate point of view".
Obama's Copyright Policies? All Copyright belongs to the Federal Govt. Next up, Mr. Conway Twitty!
Barack Obama has decided that copyright issues are a matter of national security, and has appointed a number of former RIAA lawyers to various positions in his administration. I think it's pretty clear whose side Obama is on, and it does not bode well for the future of the Internet.
Obama: Change you can believe in. It won't happen, but you sure can believe in it.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Government moves slow, which is probably a good thing.
In the case of copyright, it has only been in the past few years that normal people have even cared about copyright. Up until now, it's mainly been an issue between creators, authors, musicians, performers, and publishers. And they've had some pretty riotous fights about it. For the average citizen, who feels it's pretty good for a musician or author to be compensated for his work, and it seemed reasonable to allow longer copyrights. Better the artist (or his chosen publisher) be compensated for their work, rather than some random publisher who had nothing to do with it. In general people favor giving an artist control of their creations.
In the last 20 years, it's become more of an issue because anyone can make copies of songs, and the average person can easily get the equipment to reuse the work and make something new and creative from it. For us who are on the edge of the technological wave, it is obvious that there are problems with copyright, and we have some ideas about what the solutions should be.
The average person, on the other hand, has no idea what the issues are, hasn't really thought about them, and the government tends to be even slower than the average person. So it isn't that Obama (or Bush) is in the pocket of the RIAA, in fact, if you look at his campaign contributions, they are probably just a small portion.
Ask your non-technical neighbors or family members what they think of copyright. They will probably think that it is a good thing, even if they pirate songs themselves. They just haven't thought of all the issues.
Qxe4
"Gee, how can I piss off a bunch of rich and powerful people.. I know, I'll take away their special rights to a government granted monopoly, that sounds like a great idea!"
How we know is more important than what we know.
This about says it all in response to this persons rant.
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is part of a phrase attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and popularised in the United States by Mark Twain: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." The statement refers to the persuasive power of numbers, the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments, and the tendency of people to disparage statistics that do not support their positions.
This is insightful? It's the same old crap that gets intoned every time the subject of Obama comes up.
And anyone who points it out gets modded down.
I guess I'll wait until the next article, post "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" and get modded up to +5, Original and Witty.
When was the last time anything fell into the public domain? That has to change before I will sit up and take notice of any positive changes. These days, if they didn't make their money in the first five years, any given work is nearly dead -- especially movies. Copyright terms need to be seriously shortened by default and let there be some sort of copyright appeals process if it can be shown that they didn't get adequate return on investment.
Don't you know reading and thinking is for communist hippies??!?!?! Now be a good 'Mur'kin, and shut up and go back to watching Billy Graham!
"Bush Lied" will get you modded -1, Troll. But "OMG Teh Democrats Did It Too!" will get you +5, Insightful.
Lincoln was a Republican.
Cynical fatalism also makes it easier to dismiss your viewpoint when making decisions, since you're completely resigned to the fate of being dismissed.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I know there are lots of left-leaning people here on slashdot, and understand the moral calling they feel. But it pains me every time I see an issue like net neutrality come up and people are demanding that the politicians intervene and regulate. We beg the politicians to enslave us and to take power they shouldn't (and don't) legally have. In the end, everything we give them is abused. It's expansive government regulation that helps cartels like the RIAA to remain in operation. Instead of fostering economic development, unleashing creativity and all the other arguments tossed around in favor of the IP regime, it seems to be doing exactly the opposite. And in the realm of IP legislation, it seems like all that is happening worldwide is either (a) ground is being lost; or (b) valiant efforts are barely keeping nasty legislation at bay. Unfortunately, until we stop clamoring for the government to further intervene in the markets, things are probably going to get a lot worse before they get better. Those of you who support net neutrality legislation... watch out. If we do end up getting such a law, it will probably be the "evil" telcos that end up writing the rules and having the last laugh, all on our tax dime.
That was before the Southern Strategy.
sits on the boards of both Apple and Google, it would be difficult to over estimate his influence within the Democratic party.
Government moves slow, which is probably a good thing.
We are used to government moving slow, because until now it's been regulated by two parties with different goals slowing each other down.
When the Democrats were elected to control essentially two branches of government and neutralize the third, we removed all governing forces keeping government moving slow. Government is now free to grow unchecked, at any rate desired. That's how you got an almost order of magnitude increase in the federal deficit in the first month of a new president. That was of course before any of the other multi-trillion dollar projects come up and get added to the grand total.
That was really the singular reason to vote for McCain to the exclusion of all others good and bad, but the independents who voted for Obama blew it when they could not grasp this fundamental concept (control of the house and senate was never really in question). Never let one party hold all the marbles, it's like crossing the streams...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Narrowing down the scape of the net, for public freedom of programming, and for federal implantations is what this all means..
You can thank spammers, malware, and spyware source stripping programmers..
This has been on coming for 6 years now. The FCC has been backed up with copyright, exploit, software complaints, ect.. that have left the FCC to do nothing, but to turn to the government and implement bills of law for copyrighting programming more strictly. The FCC being under pressure has been only able to do so much, but since the general public has basically migrated online, and having over 78% of the world on the net; it was only a matter of time before the Law stood in place of minor regulations of program evaluating.
What this means to the basic consumer is nothing, but to programmers and open source writers puts a new federal pressure onto them.
The new Copyright implementations mean that if any programming source looks anything near other program source code, could put the average Joe programmer into a massive amount of trouble, Law cases, and Federal penalty. Where any large software provider (Microsoft, AOL, Activision), stays safe and secure with a new ability to push a panic button of complaint in the Court of Law, if they think some software of theirs is getting ripped off.
Rich getting richer and keeping their money safe, by securing their software, is all what is happening.
That was before the Southern Strategy.
The flipside of that, of course, is that, if, Abraham Lincoln was essentially a Democrat, then Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a Republican. The south was Roosevelt's power base. Ever wonder who the heck Carl Vinson was to get a carrier named after him? Why, he was Roosevelt's man in the Congress that rammed through a huge naval construction program just in time for World War II. Pretty much saved the USA from getting torched by Japan, but, he was pretty much a racist redneck.
This is my sig.
Having traded in a Tech major for Music, it's good to see that I haven't actually lost anything in potential employability.
No.
You can find species in the animal kingdom where infanticide is common, though.
And they haven't made laws banning it.
But that was a frigging terrible analogy.
How about wondering if 30% of the people think nothing of breaking the law on copyright explicitly, and 60% more do so occasionally (i.e. play music at a party, copy a CD (in the UK, this is illegal even for your car/iPod/whatever), watch a screener from someone else, etc), why should the 10% say nay?
If you think they should, then you think, should 5% want to abuse children, they SHOULD be allowed to abuse children. After all, the smaller your majority, the more correct your viewpoint seems to be your mantra...
And remember, copyright is abusing the 90% of humanity, so that's worse than abusing the 15% of humanity that is underage...
Why else would they complain about the theoretical loss of a sale on P2P yet hide their back catalogue for years (years that the copyright lasts but isn't exercised), denying the copyright holder and artists sales in the potential hundreds of thousands.
That's why they want to keep you renting. They can move more of their new catalogue by forcing those who want the old stuff to have no choice. Even if most of them don't buy the new stuff, some will.
And the old stuff is already paid for, so this nets them NO money.
Worse, with old classics (there's a reason why they're called classics) you may have some weird kids buying that instead of the new stuff! That ruins their market, since they have to supply two lines to the consumer (they are NEVER the customer), rather than just one.
I thought under Bush dissent was the highest form of terrorism? You know, "with us or against us" and all that?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
If you kill an artist they cannot produce any new work. This is not a good thing.
If you kill an artist, you cannot get copyright on the work either, so you've killed to give EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE COMPETITOR the exact same benefits you take for yourself but they get the advantage they haven't committed a criminal act. How nice of you.
And why would someone PAY to get this deed done? It's not like you'll be able to undercut the competition because they'll have the same costs as you, but no hitman to pay off.
1) accept bribe^H^H^H^H^H donation from corporate backers
2) do their bidding
3) profit!
Until political funding can be prised from the grip of the oligarcy of the rich, that's how it will stay. What's sad is it has been that way so long, hardly anybody perceives it as immoral anymore.
need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
Gee, I wonder if your arguement could be applied to the Republicans circa 2002.
Yes, which is why the Democrats were given power the next election cycle.
Only as bad as Republicans were, Democrats are 10x worse.
That's why you can't let either of them have control of everything. The hell of it is that at this rate the Democrats are going to hand the whole bag of marbles over to the Republicans and while as stated it's not as bad, it's still much worse than when there is a mix.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What is the rational for stripping rights of ownership from the creator during his or her lifetime? If I build a boat when I'm 25 you aren't entitled to take it away from me when I turn 45. Why is a book or a song any different? I do agree that media should become public domain upon death (or, say, 5 years after death)...copyright shouldn't be heritable in the same way a car or wad of money is. People deserve to be compensated for their time.
then Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a Republican
So stork, did you forget about the New Deal, or did you forget to put your wingnut pants on this morning? Inquiring minds would like to know...
Pri. Mary.
As in the drawn out Democratic primary last year, which went on months after McCain had the Republican nomination sewn up. Of course the press would have talked about Obama more than McCain last year.
Two other parts you conveniently fail to mention: the two months of non-stop concern trolling Obama faced over Rev. Wright and "white working class voters", and how the press bent over backwards to ignore McCain's incompetence and flip flopping.
McCain, with all his supposed foreign policy experience, confused Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis six times, and kept (falsely) claiming that Shiite Iran was training Sunni Al Queda agents. The media would have torn Obama half a dozen new assholes over this, but CBS went so far as to edit the video to cover up for McCain.
And what if Obama had mistakenly called Petraus the chair of the joint chiefs. Opps, new asshole. Or if he talked about the Iraq-Afghanistan border. Whoops, another asshole. Or if Obama had sought the endorsement of John Hagee, who had previously called the Catholic Church "the great whore", a "false belief system", an "apostate church", and that it would be "devoured by the anti-Christ".
Anyone who whines that Obama recieved favorable media coverage next to McCain needs to to drink a nice, warm cup of STFU.
Wow, where were you teabaggers
Since all you can do is throw sexual insults around I guess you didn't really want a response, you just wanted to cry about GWB some more. Wah Wah Wah! Just another Big Liberal Baby who says if GWB did it, anyone else has a right to!
Whatever. I didn't like his spending either and I was complaining about it then. But it doesn't mean Obama has not increased the spending by almost an order of magnitude, and that we should not complain about it now. It doesn't mean that as spending increases, you expect more people to complain and that's what we are seeing. Better to keep quiet? I don't think so. Enjoy your religious fervor while it lasts, until you wake up.
You are so blind, if you actually went to a Tea Party you'd see it's people from all over the spectrum, not just Republicans as your narrow minded fantasy world dictates. They are they but so are smarter liberals, and of course Libertarians - the group that accidentally voted Obama into power temporarily forgetting what happens when you let any ONE party have control of everything.
Enjoy your cry, baby.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
WTF does teabagging have to do with "sexual insults"? Just what were you guys doing at your rally?
But it doesn't mean Obama has not increased the spending by almost an order of magnitude
No, he hasn't. But thanks for trying.
I guess you didn't really want a response, you just wanted to cry about GWB some more. Wah Wah Wah! Just another Big Liberal Baby who says if GWB did it, anyone else has a right to! Whatever. I didn't like his spending either and I was complaining about it then. But it doesn't mean Obama has not increased the spending by almost an order of magnitude
Translation: IOKIYARTIYAD (it's okay if you're a republican, treason if you're a democrat).
And you can certainly argue over the merits of Obama's fiscal policies. What you cannot argue is that those policies aren't a direct result of the mess that Bush and the Republicans created in the first place.
It doesn't mean that as spending increases
We're increasing spending to try and avoid another Great Depression as the economy loses half a million jobs a month.
You are so blind, if you actually went to a Tea Party you'd see it's people from all over the spectrum, not just Republicans as your narrow minded fantasy world dictates. They are they but so are smarter liberals, and of course Libertarians - the group that accidentally voted Obama into power temporarily forgetting what happens when you let any ONE party have control of everything.
Bwhahaahaha. You mean the people so damned dumb that they went out and protested the president who gave them the largest tax cut in their lives, when they ignored the Republicans who created the mess in the first place?
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