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."

Comments

of course

[TheGratefulNet]

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.

Re:of course

[Joce640k]

"Copyright reform would have far-reaching impacts, so it is incredibly important that it be approached with all facts and viewpoints in hand"

Are those 'facts and viewpoints' green in color?

Re:of course

[devleopard]

Pretty sure this is more a lobby issue, and less a party issue.

I realize that on Slashdot, "GOP is derp, Democrats are magic unicorns" is the way we're supposed to think. However, from an ideological perspective, the GOP is more closely aligned with the ethos that could back copyright reform than the Democratic party: GOP cares about things like defense spending and big oil, and takes a "get off my lawn" attitude. Democratic party is backed by entertainment and software industries pretty heavy.

I'm not saying the Democratic platform is inferior or anything like that. Rather than check my brain at the door and say "Republicans are dumb" to throngs of derpalicious applause, I recognize that each party has very distinct ideologies. The Republican one is more closely aligned with what is necessary for copyright reform. I know it might sicken some Slashdotters to have to admit that they agree with (some parts of) the Republican party on something, but when ideology exists along a continuum (or probably better, thought of as a three dimensional matrix), its inevitable that a 2 party system will result in one or the other having conflicting values for any given person.

I'll be the first to admit, however, that the Republican party would be better served by a split. Right wing over there (Christian activists, opposed to social policy, shoot em up warmongers), those that are pro business and fiscal conservatives over here. I know the Libertarian party already meets the needs of the latter group, but I think party change needs to happen from within, as opposed to be recruited away. Of course, this is probably a pipe dream, as a fractured Republican party would have difficulty winning any elections without major election reform (do away with primaries, popular vote only, etc)

Re:of course

[squiggleslash]

However, from an ideological perspective, the GOP is more closely aligned with the ethos that could back copyright reform than the Democratic party: GOP cares about things like defense spending and big oil, and takes a "get off my lawn" attitude. Democratic party is backed by entertainment and software industries pretty heavy.

I don't think that's true, you're saying ideological differences but then looking at who's supporting them.

The ideological difference, to be honest, is that the Republicans tend to favor any laws that established businesses are benefitting from and tend to reject laws that businesses feel ties their hands. And that means that they're not likely to liberalize copyright law any time soon, even if the stereotypes ("Hollywood is infested by liberals and they want copyrights!") seem to go against that.

Remember too that the Republicans do, actually, get overwhelming support from the content industries. Just because Alec Baldwin and Jessica Alba support President Obama doesn't change the fact that these people's bosses overwhelmingly tend to support Republicans (even leaving aside the fact that outspoken Republican actors and actresses aren't, actually, as rare as Republicans like to pretend.) Ask Rupert Murdoch or Steve Burke, or Sumner Redstone how they'd feel about a liberalization of copyrights.

Re:of course

[MickyTheIdiot]

Bullshit moderation on this.

Of course it is about money. The fact is that EITHER party sits up and begs when their donors (corporate or otherwise) crack the whip. Someone got on the phone with the right people and made sure any movement to sanify copyright law was quashed.

This is was a case of the truth accidentally making it to the surface.

Re:of course

[Plekto]

It's even worse that you think.

We think of it as the companies being donors. With people in Congress calling and asking for money. But the reality is that the companies come TO the politician first and say "we'll give this money to either you or your opponent - you decide." It's not the officials asking for donations for their election/re-election efforts. It's an outright threat by the corporations to keep their "workers" in Congress in line. We're going to give you this money and you'll accept it - or we'll find someone who will.

93% of the time, the candidate with more money wins. That isn't a threat, it's a promise that you'll be unemployed if you piss off your masters.

S4B Separation complete

[Cassius.Bilbao]

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.

Re:MAFIAA popped the trial balloon.

[Arancaytar]

(I'm confused as to whether the dollar signs indicate bribery or that $facts and $viewpoints are variables in a Perl/PHP script. :P )

No constitutional scholar here

[klingens]

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?

The party of anti-regulation

[OldSport]

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.)

Re:The GOP is very divided.

[Tsu-na-mi]

I have another term or two for your "sensibles". We refer to them as "Independents", or possibly "Democrats".

Re:The GOP is very divided.

[pwizard2]

The real telling fact is that more than 2 weeks after the election the GOP apparently still doesn't know why it lost. The reason is the American people weren't interested in buying what the GOP was selling. We still don't know the details of what Romney's tax plan would have been... the whole "vote for me and I'll tell you after the election" stance just didn't fly. Why should it? The GOP seems to be at war with itself. As parent said, you have the more traditional "yay for the rich" power base competing with the insane religious right mentality. There's also the built-in racism of how poor people (ESPECIALLY minorities) "want free stuff" even though our tax money paid for it yet for some reason it's ok when the rich get welfare in the form of subsidies and tax breaks because they're the "job creators". It's like a broken record with these guys.

They have yet to offer one compelling reason why anyone (who isn't an old rich white man) should side with them. For their sakes they should hope that sort of thing will die out with the current generation. The GOP has always used bigotry and religion to get regular people to vote against their own best interests, but this year they went too far with it and people began to see it for what it was. Forget the economy, the worst income inequality in nearly a century, and crushing deficit... the real important issues to the GOP are contraception, abortion, keeping gay people from marrying, and the definition of legitimate rape. I kid you not.

It's called a Trial Balloon

[daemonenwind]

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.