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New Content-Delivery Tech Should Be Presumed Illegal, Says Former Copyright Boss
TrueSatan writes "Reminiscent of buggy whip manufacturers taking legal action against auto makers, the former U.S. Register of Copyrights, Ralph Oman, has given an amicus brief in the Aereo case (PDF) stating that all new content-delivery technology should be presumed illegal unless and until it is approved by Congress. He adds that providers of new technology should be forced to apply to Congress to prove they don't upset existing business models."
Congress has no Constitutional authority to authorise or not authorise technology for its use.
You can't handle the truth.
That is all.
Naturally, the new thing is unfair to whatever the old thing was.... Consumers should suffer, not the businesses which fail to adapt.
I think the appropriate response is "He appears to have the mindset that the world can owe you a living."
Makes me think of Scribes guild destroying printing presses and making them illegal. Who needs better technology when the stuff we have right now is making us so much money?
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The inherit short sightedness of a profit driven society is frightening to behold. Over the last dozen years so I understand why so many people believed in the communist society that the original USSR and other such countries had intended. Sadly those don't work nearly as well either.
I think we need to either move towards a socialistic society, or admit that we suck at self government and hurry up and invent AIs that can be our benevolent over lords. Assuming we can keep from programming human faults into them. Which is doubtful.
Pray the judge understands that type of setup wouldn't chill online innovation, it would stop it completely with no hope ever.
You couldn't even start to create anything new, because you would be committing a crime by researching how to create an illegal thing. Like someone trying to research new methods to produce meth in their garage...
Dear lord, this guy is so completely off his rocker it's no wonder the US is as fucked up as it is.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
So if you have a new and potentially disruptive technology, you shouldn't be allowed to go into business because you'll hurt the existing providers?
Tough shit! That's something called "progress" and "innovation."
Suck it up, cupcake -- you're a dinosaur!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
This jackass is wearing his ass for a hat. Such fuckwittery would have prevented deployment of the transistor. Except for a few niches, the transistor rendered the vacuum tube obsolete in about twenty years. It would have prevented deployment of the turbine engine because they rendered radial engines obsolete. If he were left in charge we would all be using SNA because Ethernet would not be permitted.
Turning his opinion on it's head, more reasonable is that one shouldn't be allowed to copyright or patent a work in a new technology without approval by congress. Certainly that makes more sense because the creative effort changes, and the reasonable period under which the work is protected should vary as well. A flash based push marketing advertizement on Slashdot, has the same protection as the move Star Wars, has the same protection as someones Novel. Does that really make sense?
No.
How is copyright to be killed off? Give guys like this a megaphone.
What words could possibly be more damaging to copyright than this proposal to turn it into a blatant fascist tyranny? Plus, making everyone wonder if all supporters of copyright are just as stupid also hurts it. Such proposals do more to kill off copyright than any words Lessig, the EFF, or any other pro technology boffins could say. Go, Ralph, go!
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
It's not like this isn't what all the established media companies are thinking. They all want this. At least he has the (courage|stupidity|ego) to stand up and say "we're against anything new because it might stop us making money".
Plus, it makes it ridiculously easy to argue against his point. This is a man who just weakened his entire team's position, because he spoke, on the record and in an official capacity. We should make sure this guy never gets fired, because he's actually *helping* our side by being so blatantly wrong.
of course the guy is a fuckwit. this is besides the point
you cannot and would not be able to stay stupid things and represent the people if in fact you were actually representing the people. however, our democracy is becoming plutocracy: you can't get elected unless you get a lot of money, and you can't get a lot of money until you kiss the feet of the moneyed aristocracy
i like democracy. i like my country. i recognize that it won't be easy. but somehow, we the people must win back our own country from financial interests. i said: it won't be easy. you basically want the guys strung out on the heroin of wealthy donors to pass laws against wealthy donors. good luck to us, we'll need it
it is however, the most valid fight before us as a people and a nation, and something the left and the right can join in together and find common cause in. that is in spite of those on the left and the right who swallow the corporate propaganda that keeps us divided against each other at both of our losses
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
As far as I can tell, contributorily infringing a copyright is either explicitly disallowed or so entrenched in case law that it might as well be.
That would make the music and record industries very happy. And that is a part of their grand plan. To stop this dam tech shit that's eating into their profits and taking their control.
A couple of students, backed with money from a Chinese bank, come up with a distribution mechanism that is so brilliant in its simplicity that it becomes a worldwide hit in everywhere except the US where Congress is so busy farting around trying to please their corporate sponsors that they get left several years behind.
Three years later In America, when congress realises that the rest of the world doesn't give a shit what they think and has progressed onto different and more profitable business model, everyone realises that Ralph Oman had been a complete and utter twat but by then it too late. Well done Ralph Oman, well done......
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
Before you act shocked about this, exactly how is this different than any other products sold nowadays?
It's illegal to make and sell electronic hardware without approval from the FCC. It's illegal to make and sell most any food products without approval from a state-level health agency. It's illegal to make and sell any medical products without approval from the FDA. It's illegal to make and sell any motorized vehicles without approval from multiple safety bodies. So now, we can simply add "content delivery technology" to the list of things the government presumes is guilty of... whatever, until you prove it's not.
Isn't it great to live in a "free" country? Aren't you glad you're free?
Liberty in your lifetime
So why not extend this to all creative works? Every new work should be submitted to congress for approval before it can be published. After all it might upset someone or compete with the works already available on the market!
No, that's nonsense. If a system is unjust, then it is unjust. Some things are more important than money, and one of those things is freedom. Should we hold back automation so people can keep their jobs? Think of the numerous people in the past who lost their jobs thanks to technology; tough luck. Move on or die.
It's the Equalization of Opportunity Act!!!