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."

Comments

Congress

[roman_mir]

Congress has no Constitutional authority to authorise or not authorise technology for its use.

Re:Congress

[Voogru]

That's called breaking the law.

The Congress also passed bills that allow the government to kill people with no due process of law, doesn't mean it has the authority to do it.

Re:Congress

[Joce640k]

"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea
that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the
public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged
with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing
circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is
supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or
individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock
of history be stopped, or turned back."

- Heinlein, Life Line, 1939

Re:Congress

[causality]

"Yes. The drug war is evil."

Wrong on the first part; agreed on the second. The fact that the drug war is evil, stupid, in my opinion unconstitutional, and clearly a war against personal freedoms, in no way, shape, or form means that the supreme court has ruled that it is illegal.

You're depending on the court to settle that matter for you? The same court which approved abusing eminent domain to raise tax revenues?

Tell me this. Why was it necessary to ratify a new Constitutional amendment to give the government power to prohibit alcohol, which was then repealed... but it is not necessary to apply the exact same process to different substances?

I have never seen anyone explain that. Sure, I am certain they can expand the Commerce Clause to mean they can rape your wife anytime they want, because they might buy condoms first, and buying condoms affects interstate commerce .. but c'mon. At some point you have to call the absurd absurd.

Re:Congress

[causality]

Because of the founding legal precept that all that is not explicitly disallowed is allowed. It is a foundational notion of the clComnon Law and indeed of liberty.

Yeah, for you and me. Not for the federal government. They are not supposed to have ANY POWER WHATSOEVER except for those specific powers the Constitution allows.

Re:Congress

[Registered Coward v2]

Tell me this. Why was it necessary to ratify a new Constitutional amendment to give the government power to prohibit alcohol, which was then repealed... but it is not necessary to apply the exact same process to different substances?

The 18th amendment did not give the government an additional power to regulate a specific product; they could already do that. Many states in fact already outlawed the sale of alcohol; and its regulation and taxation was begun almost immediately after the founding of the US.

What it did do was remove the states ability to regulate alcohol by giving the US Congress the power to establish nation wide laws and preempt state and local laws. The Volstead Act provided the specific law and punishments for violating the law. As with most laws that attempt to legislate one narrow view of "morality" it failed miserably. Repealing the 18th did not make alcohol says legal across the US; it simply returned the regulatory power to the states and localities. As a result, the US has a patchwork of laws; some of which result in odd situations such as Jack Daniels being able to manufacture alcohol but not be able to sell or provide samples at the distillery since it is in a dry county where the sale is illegal but not the manufacturer.

Re:Congress

[Patch86]

That would presumably be "possession of an illegal weapon" or "possession of hazardous materials without a licence which proves that you're competent to do so". Both of which seem basically sensible rules.

Possession of a computer programme that's capable of copying data seems like a rather less pressing problem to us mere plebs.

Re:I don't even

[snsh]

I think the appropriate response is "He appears to have the mindset that the world can owe you a living."

Innovation we are against it!

[Dyinobal]

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?

\

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.

Re:Innovation we are against it!

[Jane Q. Public]

"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."

It has nothing to do with being profit-driven. It has to do with being greed-driven. Contrary to the belief of many, they're not the same things. A free market depends on mutual, voluntary trade. When people try to base it on greed instead, it ceases to work properly.

Re:I don't even

[Adriax]

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.

What an idiot

[msobkow]

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!

The man who wore his ass for a hat

[djl4570]

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.

Re:The man who wore his ass for a hat

[stephanruby]

He adds that providers of new technology should be forced to apply to Congress to prove they don't upset existing business models.

Also, don't you love his thinking. He's asking that new tech companies be required to prove a negative.

With that kind of thinking: the iPhone, the iPod, the internet, the photocopy machine, the phonograph, the telegraph, the telephone, the television, the radio, penicillin, aspirin, etc. could never have seen the light of day (or all those technologies would just have become black market technology, and that policy would just have turned all of us into criminals for even using them).

Thanks for making copyright look even worse

[bzipitidoo]

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!

At least he's being honest

[gman003]

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.

stop attacking the thinking, attack the source

[circletimessquare]

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

Meanwhile, In India.........

[mormop]

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......

Before you act shocked...

[J'raxis]

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?

Re:Before you act shocked...

[Anonymous Coward]

The main difference being in that all of those cases there could be serious hazardous side-effects if done wrong (potentially fatal).

Re:Constitutional challenge to the DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Who is John Galt?

[xombo]

It's the Equalization of Opportunity Act!!!