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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."
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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
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?
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 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