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GOP Study Committee Director Disowns Brief Attacking Current IP Law
cervesaebraciator writes "Saturday an article was featured on Slashdot which expressed some hope, if just a fool's hope, that a recent Republican Study Committee Brief could be a sign of broader national discussion about the value of current copyright law. When one sees such progress, credit is deservedly given. Unfortunately, others in Washington did not perhaps see this as worthy of praise. The committee's executive director, Paul Teller, sent a memo today disavowing the earlier pro-copyright reform brief. From the memo: 'Yesterday you received a Policy Brief or [sic] copyright law that was published without adequate review within the RSC and failed to meet that standard. Copyright reform would have far-reaching impacts, so it is incredibly important that it be approached with all facts and viewpoints in hand.' People who live in districts such as Ohio's 4th would do well to send letters of support to those who crafted the original brief. I cannot imagine party leadership will be happy with so radical a suggestion as granting copyright protection for the limited times needed to promote the progress of science and useful arts."
of course the GOP is not for this.
I said as much and got modded down during the last time this came up, a few days ago.
most of us knew that the gop would not support this. they are so much NOT into the concepts given here that it had to be a 'mistake'.
and we were right.
yes, the republicans are this predictable. and untrustworthy.
nothing has changed with them and probably won't in the short term, either. if anything, they double-down on their derp when called on it.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
The original memo was probably a sneaky way of trying to get just enough reform through to let politicians use songs by musicians who don't want them to. It's surprising how often the politicians feign ignorance of copyright laws when they want something like "Eye of the Tiger" as their campaign's theme song.
With this, I guess the GOP's chances of redeeming themselves by letting go of the corporate backscratching will lose forward momentum. Without additional engines in the party, there's no steam left to do some good in the copyright world.
- Cassius
Yesterday you received a Policy Brief of copyright law that was published without adequate scrubbing of any truth or fact the RSC sets as a standard for supporting, so I'm disavowing the brief after the fact.
Copyright reform could severely cut into campaign contributions--contributions that amount to little more than kick backs from rent seekers over the economically unsound practices that the Policy Brief spells out--, so it's incredibly important that we allow the copyright industry to present "facts" and present their "viewpoints" to counter anything that the brief lays out. I mean, sure, we don't do the same thing when it comes to climate research or currently illegal drug studies. But, we really don't want to fiddle around with the status quo and upset our power base. I mean, did you really thing think we were any less in bed with Hollywood than the Democrats? We'll gladly take their money; we just wish they were less gay or liberal or whatever.
PS - I think we all saw this coming. :/
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
...radical a suggestion as granting copyright protection for the limited times needed to promote the progress of science and useful arts.
...radical a suggestion as doing what the Constitution says.
*I shake my head slowly.
No doubt they got a lot of phone calls from MAFIAA lobbyists with totally convincing $facts and $viewpoints.
They must have realized that it made sense. Can't have any of that.
since I'm a dirty foruhner from socialist Europe, but isn't
"I cannot imagine party leadership will be happy with so radical a suggestion as granting copyright protection for the limited times needed to promote the progress of science and useful arts."
going totally against the spirit and literally wording of the Constitution of the USA? He admits he considers the current law blatantly unconstitutional and still knowingly supports it. If he is a member of congress or any other public politic body and has swore any oaths on the constitution, he's now in breach of said oath, no?
At least this report is out there. Its now up to us to contact Republican congresspeople and let them know that we want them to pursue this.
When your writing your representative, don't forget to remind them that nearly everyone involved in the music and movie industries hates their guts and believes they're evil and says so openly. Let them know that what the industry says it wants and what the people want and need from copyright are chasms apart.
It's time for someone to stand up for the people's rights in this copyright fight, and the Republicans can do that. They really dont have much to lose and have a lot to gain.
Innundate them with letters supporting this proposal. Show overwhelming support for it. Let them know that "we the people" think it's time for them to tell the copyright maximalists to go straight to hell.
http://slashdot.org/submission
Dilbert RSS feed
For a party that bitches and moans about excessive regulations as much as the GOP, it astounds me that they cannot see how current IP law is smothering proper innovation.
(Okay, it doesn't astound me; in the context of corporate power in the US, it makes perfect sense. I guess what's most surprising is the doublethink required to enable these guys to spout off anti-regulation propaganda while wholeheartedly supporting complex systems of regulation, rail against welfare while supporting vast corporate welfare programs and subsidies, etc. etc.)
I suspect the tactic you suggest will itself fail. Bills that change the budget must originate in the house which is currently R majority. However copyright can be proposed for change by the House, the Senate, or even the president or any of the many Federal Regulators. The problem is not getting something proposed. It is getting something likely to get the support of a wide range of constituencies. If anybody in the /. or other forum communities want to have real impact, I wojuld focus on the particular language and circulate that and carefully record feedback you get from politicians and lobbying groups.
I have helped craft several house bills and I assure you logic and reason are in no way involved. It is 100% political, posturing, and misleading criticism that is involved. It has to survive that crazy environment.
This in an era where economics is trumped by politics ti the point it could actually financially crash the entire country.
He got a call from a massive donor who benefits from restrictive copyright (Disney, etc.) and he was told to immediately 'review' this position or he'd see an impact on national funding.
They're all such whores. Simply whores....except whores at least make one other person happy, they're not QUITE as selfish as politicians.
-Styopa
Here are three links to the text form of the brief:
On One of My Boxes
On Reference Blog
On Pastebin
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
You portray the Republicans as being one, cohesive entity, but that's extremely far from the truth. The reality is that there is much division within the party.
So you've got the so-called "neoconservatives". These are holdovers from the Bush administration. They're generally pro-big-business, pro-war, and in favor of anything that'll make them more money. The GOP is more of a tool to them, than it is something that they hold any inherent belief in.
Then you've got the "religious fundamentalists" and "teapartiers". These are the ones who are against abortion, against homosexuals, and who are crazy for their twisted idea of Jesus Christ. They are less focused on business, but rather on social issues. They have shown themselves to be the less-intelligent of all of the groups within the GOP. These are often the Southerners who receive significant amounts of direct government assistance, but then turn around and protest the very government social programs that they leech off of continually.
Over the past decade or so, the neoconservatives and religious fundamentalists have courted one another, in order to gain control over the Republican Party. They've been the public face of the GOP during this time.
There are other major groups within the party, however. There are also the "paleoconservatives" and the "libertarians". They're the ones who advocate smaller government, less involvement of the government within the daily lives of Americans, and so forth. Since these views often conflict with those of the neoconservatives and religious fundamentalists, these groups have been marginalized recently, although they formerly were a large part of the GOP.
The most interesting subgroup, however, are generally referred to as the "sensibles". These are often younger Republicans who are generally completely against the craziness of the religious fundamentalists, against the domestically-harmful warmaking of the neoconservatives, and who generally have a more relaxed view than the paleoconservatives or the libertarians.
One other thing to consider about the sensibles is that they represent a much wider swath of American society. They include blacks, Hispanics, Middle Easterners and Asians, for instance. People like this are generally shunned by the rest of the Republican subgroups. Interestingly, although these people don't have white skin, they have adopted political stances that have traditionally been held by whites.
They are willing to openly admit to facts that otherwise haven't (or politically couldn't) be admitted to by the existing Republican groups, nor by the Democrats. They're more than willing to admit that blacks are responsible for more crimes than other races, even when there are many more whites and Hispanics who are far worse off, economically and socially. They'll admit that the unbridled illegal immigration from Central and South America has been extremely harmful to the American economy. They see that existing IP laws and practices are hindering the American economy. They know that American military involvement in the Middle East and in other areas of the world has been harmful to America as a whole. They see the War on Drugs as a waste of valuable resources. They don't care if one man wants to stick his penis up another willing man's rectum.
I think that it's these "sensibles" who are the Republican's best bet for relevance in the future. They're the only ones who don't hold antiquated, or just straight-out insane, views. They hold a much more realistic view of the world. They see truths that the other Republicans can't see, or that they refuse to see. They are the only ones who present a sane, viable alternative to the Democrats. And while they're relatively small in number now, it's likely that they'll become far more prominent as time goes on.
Just one more issue the GOP is on the wrong side of!
I wrote a quick email to my congressman, who is a Republican. I was a little sleepy when I did because I get I'll from time to time. I voted for him. Basically, I feel as though copyright law has oppressed people from time to time. More than you'd think. There are areas of our country that never get many books to read, artwork, or music. There are countries that would never get to read the Bible or even Edgar Allen Poe's poetry because of censorship. I'm all for paying the fiddler, but take a ride through the south right now if you have the guts to do so and see some of these areas I speak of man. Piracy can oppress or bring you out of it, depending. Literacy is important to the GOP, right?
The people benefiting from copyright law being where it is are the big media and entertainment types.
These give all of their money to Democrats.
The Republicans need to grow some balls and attack the media establishment. Their best move would be a high rate of tax and zero copyright protection, which would drive Hollyweird and big media into bankruptcy.
Yes, it would be an industry destroyed, but it's also clear that outside of Fox News, the media is almost uniformly pro-left and anti-right.
Any lessening of the power of media would be a strategic win for the Republicans.
Futurist Traditionalism
People who live in districts such as Ohio's 4th would do well to send letters of support to those who crafted the original brief.
Ohio's 4th has been Republican since 1938.
It's 93% white, 40% rural, with a median income of $40,000. Ohio's 4th congressional district The only city in the district you are likely to recognize is Marion, population 35,000, and the home town of Warren G. Harding, Marion, Ohio
Jordan called for fiscal responsibility and noted his strong beliefs in traditional family values. Slone [Democrat] pointed to his labor and union background while calling on Washington to help create jobs. Kalla [Libertarian] cited a number of government reforms that would reduce federal regulations while bolstering freedom in the country.
Jordan, Slone, Kalla vie for Ohio 4th congressional district
The Libertarian candidate drew 5% of the vote, which is as good as it gets for his party in Ohio,
In a district that is old industrial and agricultural, talk of copyright reform excites no one. There are much bigger issues on the table.
posting to kill accidental moderation
GENERATION 24: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
I agree, the second is an alarming problem. The tragedy of the commons should not be ignored. Large corporations like Disney pillage the shared cultural backlog of content, slap some candy frosting on it, and in some cases, even mangle the story to inject yet another (highly profitable) Disney Princess into the mix, then shut down any other fair use of the public domain stories they blatantly rip off.
Then you have the RIAA and its Canadian counterpart, flagrantly and willfully flaunting copyright law by consistently failing to reimburse or even LISTEN to artists who's music they compiled into unsanctioned "Greatest Hits" albums and sold like hotcakes. I heard they got a wrists slap for that, at worst, despite bleeding millions from artists they ripped off.
Dont even get me started on how Hollywood in general does business.
20 years is a little under a third of a person's expected lifetime. It is a VERY long time in regard to copyright. Are you telling me that as a creator, you cannot possibly recoup your investment in the creation of your works in that time? For real?
OR, are you simply suffering from entitlement complex issues, where you feel your great great grandchildren, who are completely incapable of producing more of YOUR work after you die of old age, are somehow magically more important than anyone else's grandchildren, and therefor deserving of being paid forever and ever and ever? An eternal legacy for your progeny?
Which of us is promoting theft from the community again?
"I cannot imagine party leadership will be happy with so radical a suggestion as granting copyright protection for the limited times needed to promote the progress of science and useful arts."
-- Translation: Advancement of science and the useful arts play second fiddle to profits for donors to the RNC.
"People who live in districts such as Ohio's 4th would do well to send letters of support to those who crafted the original brief."
-- Translation: You people in Ohio's 4th CD can go pound sand. Your elected representative is irrelevant because copyright law will always be made by members subservient to the recording and motion picture and IP litigation industries -- people like me.
the wholesale theft of intellectual property developed in the USA, including nearly all forms of entertainment media and very considerable theft of all manner of industrial process and design by foreign firms in virtually every market imaginable?
Surely you're trolling? Come on, the work to develop those industrial processes and entertainment media was done ONCE. Yet you're OK with the government granting folks a monopoly so they can charge excessive fees for EVERY instance of the idea or media after the fact? To me this is "theft" from the society. What's been stolen is my right to come up with my own ideas and use them, yes, patent law prevents me from doing this at least once a month. The theft is me being denied the right to share a cultural work with my friends, or Sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY IN PUBLIC.
Get back to me when restaurants can sing me Happy Birthday instead of some bullshit they have to make up instead. Until then, surely you jest.
Everyone should be on the lookout for more head fakes by the GOP trying to convince us all that they are something they are not with the hope that they can fool enough people into voting for them. This is a perfect example that emphasizes that GOP policy is determined by those at the top to trickle down to those at the bottom, who then follow along behind to parrot the talking points provided on Faux News. Since about half of the electoral has an IQ 100 and below, this strategy always has a good chance of winning. With the GOP it's not about the issues. It's about the marketing of what the 1% wants.
This is something politicians of all stripes do with concepts they're considering.
You have some odd group, loosely connected with the mainline, release a paper on some odd policy shift. You immediately decry the readiness of the idea, but never actually put the idea down.
Then, you sit back and watch what people do with it. Do your party bigwigs panic? Does your base embrace it? What do the major money sources say about it?
If you watch politics long enough with an eye for this sort of thing, you'll see this done everywhere.
So, considering it's the Republicans, I'm sure Reince Priebus and a few others will be monitoring talk radio, Breitbart, and the major news outlets to see how this is received. They'll also poll their elected officals to see if anyone called/wrote in about it.
So, if you like this, TALK ABOUT IT. Call into Rush Limbaugh or your local version of it. Call or email your R representatives, if you have any. Tell them you like this. Highlight the positives. Talk it up. Argue for it!
Keep in mind that the Republicans are, *right now*, reevaluating their platform for ideas that get people elected. Instead of being a snarky ass, this is a great time to show them that thoughts like this could get them the "youth vote". If you're willing to shed some of your preconceptions about politics in general and Republicans in particular, that is.
reduce taxes to a maximum of 10-12% of my income, not the 70-80% it is now (income tax, sales tax, property tax, etc.).
I'm at the bottom end of the top 10% of wage earners. I pay 10% federal income tax. I pay about 10% all others (sales, property, SS, medicare).
I've never seen anyone get to 70-80% unless they are taking impossibly improbable combinations of income without deductions and cherry-picking the worst rates from around the country (and usually, but not always, count corporate taxes paid by corporations as taxes paid by them).
Learn to love Alaska
"The check from the RIAA cleared."
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The brief has been pulled from the RSC website. It's as good a guess as any that it was pulled so fast because someone at the MPAA or RIAA put the kibosh on this. Copies of it still circulate about the internet.
The original brief was written by congressional staffer, a young guy by the name of Derek Khanna. It seems it was not a committee-wide document. Khanna continues a discussion on the matter over at Reddit. I should imagine by now that Khanna has his balls in a vice for this embarrassment.
If you're the kind of person who regularly complains about IP laws, but would rather do something about it, write Khanna a note of support by email or twitter. That doesn't mean you have to agree completely with the brief or other things Khanna has to say. It just gives him the ammunition to say that copyright reform is a good direction for the GOP and that his writing about it was not a mistake. As daemonenwind notes about, the GOP, particularly the younger elements of it, is now taking a hard look at its platform. You may be rather jaded, as I am, and believe that the old neo-con guard is likely to carry the day. They are. But if there's any hope of changing the discourse on this it will be at a time right now, when the older ways of the GOP have received electoral repudiation that a flood of cash couldn't stop. The promise of real electoral support that could come from a pro-reform platform will be particularly attractive now, especially if they get the sense that those under 35 care about this.
The thing that always surprises me is that people don't realize that the two main parties are basically the same with slightly different boogeymen.
This is completely naive. Most politicians really believe in issues, and generally cannot see their own hypocrisy. There is ideological warfare in Washington. The first step to understanding human nature is recognising that 95% of people really believe the bullshit that comes out of their mouth.
/really/ believe it.
/really/ believe that government is the problem -- an internalised narrative that can exist in a fact-free zone.
Take McCain's assault on Susan Rice: Mark Twain said "it is easier to fool a man then convince him he has been fooled." Congress is populated by the fooled. Only the wise know they are fools, which cuts out most of the political faithful.
When Exxon-Mobile pays think-tanks to drum up anti-science nonsense, everybody from the CEO, the "researchers", the news-anchors, to the rank-and-file republicans who repeat the claims as fact -- all these people fool themselves with a story about how they are the good guy, protecting something sacred. Once committed to the narrative, they
We're going to see a fight over a carbon tax, letting tax holidays for the rich expire, and the GOP will attempt to use the deficit crisis as a cudgel to destroy government (other then the military), because they
The Dems are not so reformist and reactionary (the Dems are truly the conservatives in this case), and they need to fight harder, and one D senator recently declared that they will "fight to the teeth".
But continue on with your narrative that both political parties are really the same.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
If you're paying 70-80% of your income in taxes you're doing it wrong.
The PDF of the brief has been deleted and replaced by a blank page. It has now disappeared down the memory hole. Some ideas are just too dangerous to propagate and must be silenced. The author must keep his mouth shut otherwise he soon may become an unperson.
-- :)
GENERATION 23: because I dislike social experiments a a rule.
Hell I've never seen someone manage to claim 80% income taxes up here in Canada where we really are taxed more. PS for those interested, this is federal income taxes here:
15% on the first $42,707 of taxable income, +
22% on the next $42,707 of taxable income (on the portion of taxable income over $42,707 up to $85,414), +
26% on the next $46,992 of taxable income (on the portion of taxable income over $85,414 up to $132,406), +
29% of taxable income over $132,406.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Yeah, it's a common lie in the US that we have "high taxes" when we have low taxes, especially on the rich.
Learn to love Alaska
Self-employed people will hit between 50 and 60% when working in Illinois for an LLC with company profits over 200,000 per employee. No matter if that money was going to be invested back into the company or not.
That's funny. If you work for an LLC and are self employed with profits over $200,000 per employee, you are a self-employeed business owner making what, $500,000 per year? Losing 50% of your net is still around 20% gross, not too bad. Make it a corporation and pay yourself in stock options and benefits and you can then reinvest back into the company without penalty, so long as you are doing it right, which you can if you are a 2-person company (thus have $1,000,000 or so per year turnover).
Learn to love Alaska
Yeah, it's a common lie in the US that we have "high taxes" when we have low taxes, especially on the rich.
Unless math has changed recently, both 33% and 35% are > 29%.
2011 Tax Computation Worksheet—Line 44
At least $100,000 but not over $174,400 = 28% rate
Over $174,400 but not over $379,150 = 33% rate
Over $379,150 $ = 35% rate
U.S. corporate tax rate: No. 1 in the world
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Base tax rate has nothing to do with taxes paid. Just FYI.
I could see one case where they might be for it: to attach the financial base of the industries that support the Dems. It seems that Dems are closer tied to the entertainment industry, which is closer tied to patents etc.
I'm in the bottom rung of the top 10% of wage earners, and paid 10% in federal income tax (still 28% rate), that's a real rate from a real person, not a base rate that ignores all deductions and reasonable avoision. The truly rich don't pay those rates anyway, they pay (at most) 15% capital gains.
Learn to love Alaska
You want to remember the profound difference between the rate and what actually get's paid. A person with an annual income over $379,150 a year is capable of hiding tremendous amounts of money in hedges and tax free or tax differed investments. Though corporations may be taxed at 35%, please look at the amount of money corporations supply to the total Government Budget. In 1960 corporations accounted for 40%, of the money in the Government Budget. Today they provide only a couple percent. The difference was made up for in payroll taxes... in other words, as corporations have globalized, become unimaginably wealthier and more powerful, they've gutted the health and wealth of the middle class and stiffed their taxes dumping that load on the American middle class. So when CEOs whine about the unfair taxes, spit in their eye, because it is a bald faced lie.
Bill Clinton suggested we institute a flat 15% tax on all business, putting us directly in line with most other countries around the world, with the one caveat, no loopholes, no exceptions, no holy dispensations. The surprising fact is, this single act would so dramatically increase the taxes received by the Federal Government that most if not all of our current fiscal problems would vanish over night. Add ending subsidies to oil companies (who are breaking all profit records) as well as subsidies on big Agro and big Pharma, and our budget would be looking more than a fair site happier. This pandering to the wealthy is at the heart of our social and economic collapse.
Finally, that 35% top rate may seem high to you now, but not compared to the over 99% rates from the late 1940s through 1960s. The interesting part, is that our economy was stronger, middle class healthier, and the wealthy still got wealthier. We had virtually free education even for school in the U.C. system, and we turned out engineers and scientists faster than anyone else on the planet. Please explain to me how taxing the wealthy is bad after looking at 30 years of the full on disaster that supply side economics has been. We stand at the brink of disaster, and the wealthy keep chanting just a little more and it'll all work out and the ignorant mouth breathing public buy it with the contrary evidence staring them in the face... this is the danger of promoting faith based magical thinking. Just as an aside, George H.W. Bush foretold all of this with incredible accuracy during the 1980 Republican Presidential run off where he referred to supply side as "Voodoo Economics."
Relevant and interesting quiz on what the rich really pay in taxes: http://money.cnn.com/quizzes/2012/pf/taxes/rich-pay-tax/
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)