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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."
meet the new boss, same as the old boss...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
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.
It is a legitimate point of view from a political science point of view: they have their desire, which is essentially to be able to make money from each copy of whatever they made, and have complete control over it. Others (especially around here) have the desire to be able to take their creations and use it any way they want, without paying them at all. Both are legitimate, real desires.
Politics isn't about deciding who is right and who is wrong, it is about finding a compromise, or workable solution between two conflicting parties. In this case, the compromise is likely to be reduced copyright durations, and expanded fair use. Downloading music for free, as a lot of people want, is not likely to ever be legalized. The RIAA will not disappear until artists stop using their services, which may happen one day.
Qxe4
Don't they do that in the Netherlands? Or have they shut down their red light districts?
That's strange a candidate who has precisely zero chance of every becoming relevant is ignored by the people that are supposed to be covering the news. If only there were some organization with the guts to cover things that nobody really cares about.
Seriously though, what exactly entitles Ron Paul to coverage. At some point you actually have to put up a decent showing if you wish to get time on the national news, it's strange how you have to be involved in the news to make it into the news. Just because the news media has a tendency to give the right wing a free pass doesn't mean that it should.
Seriously though, what exactly entitles Ron Paul to coverage.
Well, clearly not getting second place in a state's presidential primary, as when that happened (Nevada) all of the news reports read "Romney first, McCain third", not mentioning the "Paul second" part anywhere. I agree Ron Paul had no chance of winning, but he got even less coverage than the others who had even less chance of winning.
they're the ones who completely ignored Ron Paul's existence
Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, too.
True, but it was particularly obvious in Ron Paul's case, when he was getting vote tallies on par with Giulliani's in the early primaries and they refused to label Paul's wedge in their pie charts.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
I would say the system is definitely broken, when copyright for a work belonging to an individual is 75 years after death and belonging to a corporation is 100 years.
Next time you are in Europe look at how many Disney characters are used all over the place.. Disney messed up and didn't get copyright extended in Europe before Mickey and Minnie hit 50 years and if I recall correctly, a few other characters escaped into the public domain before the EU changed the copyright to match the US limits.
Personal opinion, NO copyright should extend past the death of the artist.
Very good comment. One additional point to throw in about the RIAA's desires is that they want to be sure that all music has some cost (and therefore, value) associated with it. If all of a sudden, the best selling albums and singles become public domain, the record companies will have to work 10x as hard to compete against freely available music which is arguably of better quality than the tripe they're serving up.
It reminds me of the scene in the Grapes of Wrath where poor, starving farm workers tried to take some imperfect (i.e. not good enough for market, but totally edible) fruits from a farm's dump and they called in the national guard. If they can eat my garbage for free, the thought was, why would they ever pay for the "market quality" stuff?
So let's play this out a little bit. Let's say we drop the copyrights on everything over 17 years old. All of a sudden, everything older than Third Eye Blind is free. The majority of Metallica music. U2, Madonna, Pink Floyd, Paula Abdul... Jefferson Starship, Beatles, the list goes on. Anything recorded by Casals, most of Pavarotti's records... How many people would say, "I've got a lifetime of music to wade through that's free. Why would I buy this top-40 crap for even a dollar?"
Unless, of course, they actually turn out some product that's better than Britney. I'm not saying that there's no good music these days, but I'm saying that most of the pop stuff they put out now would have a hard time competing against a practically infinite supply of free music.
The CB App. What's your 20?
As if money were the only form of power in a democracy.
Hint: we are the government, we are the mediator. If you let the RIAA bribe the mediator, it is your own stupid fault (along with that of 200 million other citizens).
Oh ho ho ho! Now THAT's something!
If we elect someone thinking that they're "good and honest" folks, and they turn around and act like the typical asshat that we're much more familiar with, I'll point the blame at that asshat first. Now, if that asshat gets re-elected, I'm totally with you. The idiots who vote and proclaim "Thank you! May I have another!" would certainly be at fault in that case.
Point is: When electing someone, we can only take our best guess and choose from those of us who decide to run for the public office. It's kinda like a lengthened interview. I've been tricked in interviews... But I learned from those mistakes (after cleaning them out the best I can), and I've done my best to get better. Likewise, I've been tricked by my elected officials. It happens. But, that's why we're supposed to pay attention and make sure we don't repeat those mistakes.
This also (not coincidentally) happens to be a major reason I hate the political party setup in the US. People tend to get used to voting for one side or another... and they tend not to hold those they vote for accountable for the BS they pull. It's also why I beg and plead with people to vote on more than just an affiliation... But that's a battle I'm going to lose for a long time.
.. went out of their way to paint McCain as a senile old man and Palin as a crazy country bumpkin.
If by "went out of thier way," you meant "turned the cameras on and stepped back," then I agree with you completely. You can't blame everything on the media, the dancing monkeys on TV performed their act as well.
Barack Obama has decided that copyright issues are a matter of national security [slashdot.org], and has appointed a number of former RIAA lawyers [wired.com] to various positions in his administration.
Yes... god forbid teh ev1l goverment should hire people familiar with copyright law to work in the justice department...
FYI: lawyers defend who they're paid to defend, and prosecute who they're paid to prosecute. That's their job. Just because they worked for the RIAA, doesn't mean they are, by default, shills for the media conglomerates.
I think that is the crux of the problem right there.
IMO, reasonable people would interpret that to mean they have complete control over distribution, licensing, and profits derived from such activities from their copyrighted works. I have no problem with that. I BELIEVE in copyrights. Not as they exist now, but the idea of what a copyright is and provides, is beneficial to society. I think everything should be 20 years. Or 25, 17, whatever. Not 75 years, or the lifetime of anyone plus anything.
The RIAA, Big Media, and *especially* SONY (rootkit), interpret that to mean complete control over how and when their customers enjoy their works. I myself think, and that most reasonable people, would think that is an unreasonable and unethical position to take.
Does Tyson tell you how to cook your chicken? How to cut it? Does Shake-n-Bake mandate exactly 6 shakes? Does Toyota tell you that your Prius can only be driven in the Southwest U.S?
Why do we put up with the idea that after, most importantly AFTER, we give our money to these companies that they get to control us in any way shape or form? That is not normal. That expectation is not realistic or even what a normal person has ever expected.
What these companies are fighting so hard for is something we would have never agreed to in the first place, and is certainly not in society's best interest. Their purported* financial best interests, but not our society's, or freedom for that matter.
* - That is not even certain. I don't believe that an instance of piracy equals a lost sale. I think if piracy stopped completely tomorrow that CD sales would rise marginally. A few percentage points. Not year over year multi-digit gains. The business models have to change. Like or not, music is a 99c world and albums just don't sell for 20$+ like they used to. They are panicking and desperate, if not suicidal. It reminds me when aluminum was worth more than gold, and then suddenly was worth less than 1c on the dollar. My concern is that they seem hell bent on destroying our freedoms, destroying copyrights, and basically making life a living hell till they finally die.
Well, clearly not getting second place in a state's presidential primary, as when that happened (Nevada) all of the news reports read "Romney first, McCain third", not mentioning the "Paul second" part anywhere. I agree Ron Paul had no chance of winning, but he got even less coverage than the others who had even less chance of winning.
Maybe because your story isn't true?
I just Googled Nevada GOP Primary. Clicked the first news story http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22739349/
Headline is:
Clinton, Romney win in Nevada
Texas' Paul to finish second in state's GOP caucuses
They don't talk much about Ron Paul in the story. Probably because he got the same number of caucus seats as McCain. So although McCain got third he actually in effect tied for second. And since Ron Paul was currently polling in the low single digits there was no reason to believe it was anything other than a fluke in an unimportant caucus won by the guy who came in third place in the end anyway. And take one look at Rudy Giuliani. If the media was to be believed then he was a shoe in. So if Huckabee could go from obscure to competitive second then there is no reason Ron Paul couldn't have as well despite minimal media coverage. The simple fact of the matter is most people think Ron Paul is a nut job because he advocates things they don't believe in nor want to vote for.