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Coble-Berman Bill Would Restrict Fair Use
Posted by
michael
on Fri Jul 12, 2002 09:38 AM
from the fair-what? dept.
from the fair-what? dept.
Amazing Quantum Man writes "News.com is reporting on the new Berman-Coble copyright bill. This bill is a two-edged sword. It would make life easier for webcasters, but it would restrict fair use. Interestingly, according to the article, Berman allegedly opposes the bill that has his name on it as a sponsor! I don't think it's on Thomas yet, but Politech has a copy of the bill (2.1M PDF)." The report which the memorandum attached to the bill refers to is online. Congress is making an effort to reconcile traditional copyright law with the realities of digital copying; there's no telling whether the end product will be something tolerable or not.
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Unfortunatly.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Understanding the legal ramifications and understanding what's actually going on are two completely different things..
Re:Unfortunately.. (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, to Congress, "bringing in tech people" means bringing in people from MSFT, Oracle, Sony, the (RI|MP)AA, etc. If we are lucky, they might bring in a forward thinking persom from Caltech, MIT, etc. But otherwise, they will bring in industry people who would/do profit from Digital Restrictions Management.
Re:Unfortunately.. (Score:2)
I agree. But I also expect that most people would not take this job because they could make at least twice as much money in industry. The only time I have heard of this happenning was when people were escaping the dot-bomb to stable government jobs, or when they could not find industry jobs (which is part of the dot-bomb in itself.)
What a joke! (Score:4, Funny)
I'm a government consultant [house.gov] for a large institution [fbi.gov] on the east coast, known for its strongarm tactics. We have recently been contacted by some [riaa.org] of our constituents [riaa.org] about this so-called "file sharing" [bearshare.com] that's a goin' on on the internet. Our job is to put the kabosh on it, tout suite! However, before we lace up the jackboots, we wanted to know what a bunch of college students and open source advocates thought.
What an utterly laughable idea.
Parent
Re:What a joke! (Score:2)
What are they trying to protect? (Score:4, Insightful)
Copyright has a long tradition, It wasn't something drempt up overnight and in IMHO on the whole not to bad, the only thing I would change would be to reduce the length of the copyright(basicly putting the law back to where it used to be).
I live in the UK, and it seems that the US and UK are making extram changes about somthing they don't understand, they should ask them selfs: what is copyright for? and is there anything wrong with the current system. and I think they'll find that copyright it to protect the original producer from being ripped off and at the same time to encourage creativity and derived works and that there's nothing wrong with the current systems.
Law vs. Reality (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the case here. Congress (and all the people who are paying for them) are trying to change the reality of a society that's very rapidbly becoming a 'free information' country. They're trying to put limits on something that is changing the world very rapidly and in a very chaotic manner. You can call it 'destructive' if you want to, since it's certainly destroying organizations and businesses that survive by controlling information, but it's jsut change.
The problem with trying to control this change is that you can't legislate fish into flying or birds into swimming. Just look at Prohibition if you need an example. A small subsection of the country's population tried to legislate away people's rights to get drunk and wasted. They had good intentions. Alcoholism is certainly a problem and destroys many, many lives. By making a law that was disliked and unenforceable, however, the country opened itself up to the ravages of organized crime more than ever before.
Look at the 'War on Drugs'. Hard drugs (and even some 'soft' drugs) ruin lives and kill people. That doesn't change the fact that people want to get high or stoned. You think that columbian drug lords would have vast fortunes with which to buy submarines and advanced IT installations if the American government hadn't created a situation in which it was more profitable to do dusiness in an illegal manner than legally?
Information is in the same boat. Companys claim billions and billions of dollars of 'lost sales' (cough *bullshit* cough) on music, software, game, and video piracy. People want to use the stuff in a 'fair use' way. Even moreso, they want to pirate it and not pay for it. All the government is going to do by creating a law that makes it more difficult to legally share information is make more people into criminals who weren't before.
Not "destructive", "disruptive" (Score:5, Interesting)
The common opinion on
Enter the term, "disruptive."
There is a sizable body of mainstream economic literature (sorry, no URLs handy, ran across this in dead-tree pre-URL days) that focuses on "disruptive technologies" - how they are bad for some businesses and business models, but good for society as a whole. This is non-geek literature.
Our problem is to cast the free and open nature of the Internet as a mainstream distruptive technology as important to society as the telephone, automobile, airplane, etc. Take a look at the international nature of Linux (or *BSD) and tell me that the Internet hasn't done something immensely valuable for mankind. Letter-writing and co-operative journals are old, so is travel, but this is international collaboration of an unprecedented scale by common people. Not only do we take it for granted, we're about to throw it away in exchange for an outmoded and defective business model. (I know, there are no words about shutting down the Internet, but the sum chilling effect of DRM effectively does so by turning it into radio/television.)
This needs to become a mainstream issue, not a geek one.
(IMHO, the most socially disruptive technology of recent history has been the sanitary napkin.)
Parent
Re:Not "destructive", "disruptive" (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, most of the MBA-crowd literature, from the scholarly to the popular is chok full of remarks on disruptive innovations. The most specific on on this subject, however is (aptly enough) The Innovator's Dilemma [barnesandnoble.com] by Clayton Christensen [amazon.com].
There are a few really good, more general books on the subject, but i'd have to be at home to find the titles.
Re:Law vs. Reality (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree. The greatest danger to law enforcement is laws that are easy to enforce but do little for the greater good. How many times have you seen people pulled over by speed traps when there were better things that could be done with the cop's time, like actually patrolling an area?
Laws need to be focused on things that can be agreed upon by society as a whole. If two large sides vigorously disagree yet something is made illegal, then obviously something should probably not be made illegal, since the purpose of the united states government as designed is to protect freedom, not to restrict it for the benefit of the minority.
Re:Law vs. Reality (Score:3, Interesting)
On the surface, that seems idiotic, but there is a school of thought that says that it's a workable solution.
Let's use drugs as a test case. Right now, you can get in more trouble for drug posession than child molestation. You're more likely to be arrested and more likely to go to jail or prison for a longer time. Now, if you completely elminated all controlled subtances laws, you create several problems where drugs are more available and people who can't deal with them properly hurt themselves. However, in the same stroke, you release several dozen thousand of non-violent offenders from prison who are there for 'posession' crimes, open up and legitimize drug treatment like alcohol treatment, and help to create a society that is not only more tolerant of drugs, but also more tolerant to the people who need help. Right now, people who have problems with alcohol are encouraged on all sides to get help. There are many organizations that exist to help individuals who have addiction problems. Alcohol users know that they can get help without fear of being arrested. Drug addicts do not currently have this luxury. If they seek treatment, there is a high possibility that someone they go to for help will turn them. If drugs were legal, a lot more of them could seek treatment.
Other, more serious vices, have both plusses and minuses to legalization. Prostitutes who work in areas where it's legal (certain parts of Nevada), for example, have better protection from violence, rape, abuse, STD's and other 'sex-worker' problems than they do in other parts of the country. They also have a better chance of 'getting out' than their peers in other parts of the world. If you legalized prositution nation-wide, there are many problems that would arise because of that. There are also many problems that would simply go away... perhaps more than would be created by such a situation.
Remember that a great deal of our 'vice' legislation at both the state and federal level was created not by the 'Forefathers', but by conservative moral special interests. This was the case with prohibition and is the case with current vice laws like 'The war on Drugs', etc... While it's not true for every problem, in the United States, the cure is often worse than the disease.
Legalize it (Score:4, Interesting)
I heard on NPR that in the 1968 election, Nixon promised to reduce crime. After getting elected, he had to produce. Some of his advisors told him that all of the more traditional law enforcement techniques had been proven not to work. (by experience) His best shot was drug treatment, to reduce demand, and therefore crimes of financing. He went along with it, it worked, and crime actually did go down measurably. In the 1972 election crime was no longer a big issue, so he dismantled the apparatus, and the approach has never been taken seriously again.
Kind of like the way Clinton/Greenspan actually did achieve a "soft landing" of the economy right before the dot-com boom. But now the concept appears to be forgotten, and I have no doubt that whenever recovery comes, it will be back into the usual boom/bust cycles.
Back to topic, filesharing is an interesting comparison to drugs because it is a widespread crime. Perhaps it should be better compared to Prohibition, one of the stupider ideas the US ever came up with, and clearly the STUPIDEST thing ever put into the US Constitution.
Parent
Note the Source (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean. I may not agree with him but this is a politician who is doing something most politicians don't do. He's representing his district ( this includes the media/software conglomerates ) and so you have to give him credit for that
NOTE: I don't endorse the proposal, but before people roast this guy alive just remember where he's coming from. Unlike Hollings who doesn't care a lick about his constituents
Re:Note the Source (Score:2)
Incidently, PTO head, James Rogan (formerly a Congressman from Orang County) pretty much said the same thing motivated him to get into IP issues which heknew next to nothing about before coming to Congress.
Berman doesn't represent me. (Score:2)
It's really screwed...whenever there's a bill like this, I can't write my congresscritters because I know they will not be very sympathetic to my viewpoint. So much for representative democracy... [sigh]
Media makes the laws. (Score:2, Insightful)
Does anyone else find it suspicious that Major 'Terrorist Attack' ratings boosters appear to distract the 'average joe' whenever one of these bills is introduced ?
Remember folks
Just for fun ask 10 people who voted in the last election - if they can name 5 people (aside from the person they voted for) who appeared on the docket along with their 'chosen' canadate.
Or make it simple and just ask why they voted the way they did.
This bill is strictly a media bill. Who on EARTH would profit from allowing people to NOT record TV shows
I find it very funny that Micky Mouse was brought up
Our system of laws, while the intentions are good, has degenerated into the 'informed' and the 'un-informed' Folks don't object to bills because they are spoon-fed the baby bird version by mamma CNN. What does a farmer in the middle of Iowa care if he can upload the new britney spears song to his sister's kid in Ohio? But ask the same guy if he thinks its fair for MEDIA COMPANIES
Im betting you would get a totally different answer.
heh (Score:2)
If its the forth of july, and CNN tells them there is a 'potential' Terrorist attack , they watch the skys. [If you find that hard to believe
If its the presidential elections, and CNN says X canidate is going to win
Hell, we had that whole mess last time in the Primaries simply BECAUSE the media couldn't shut up about it.
My paranoia wasnt because I believe that
[Although not TOO far offbase, since computer 'Hacking' to use the media term - is now considered 'cyber-terrorism']
My point was
Now , if this was a bill that was horrible for those same companies, the *might* report on it, but do you think it would get the same spin ?
Seems bad at first, yet.. (Score:3, Insightful)
At first glance this seemed the most rediculous thing I've ever heard. I mean, taping shows in VCRs is the best way to catch a show you missed, and letting a friend or parent watch it if they missed it too is second nature.
Then I got to thinking about this in terms of today's technology. Pretty soon, we could be burning these shows onto DVDs with DVD-like quality and giving them to people. Of course this could happen today, but I'm talking mainstream ala VCRs. But then, with that kind of technology you could tape the shows and then sell whole series on DVDs to people. You could even edit out commericials. The possibilities are endless.
Is this a bad thing? Not inherently, but it could get worse, imho. VCRs are tediously outdated, but are used because they are simple. With DVD or like technology, shows can be uploaded online with ease, carried around, played on your work computer, etc. It really changes the way you think about the whole TV/Movie/Music watching concept, and as such our laws around them must change as well.
I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. It may be that pretty soon you can't let anyone else listen to a CD you bought.
Re:Seems bad at first, yet.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because something that used to be profitable is no longer profitable is no reason to change the law. It is a reason to go do something else.
Re:Seems bad at first, yet.. (Score:2)
Just because something that used to be profitable is no longer profitable is no reason to change the law. It is a reason to go do something else.
You statement is true in some instances, but I hope you're not dogmatic about it. Many slashdotters will preface it with some comment about how the cars destroyed the horse and buggy industry and so all the blacksmiths were anti-car.
The difference is that horseshoes are no longer in demand, but music and movies very much still are. When new technology destroys the profitability of an item without rendering it obsolete, there is ample reason to consider a change to the law. That's part of the reason why governments subsidize farming.
-a
Food (Score:2)
I suppose we should be grateful that they're not banning sharing food, or growing your own food, or mandating Food Rights Management on all refridgerators.
There are still blacksmiths. There just aren't as many as there were before. Many do it as a hobby rather than a job. Likewise farmers. If there's a market for movies, people will make movies. But you shouldn't expect the movie industry to be as big or as profitable as it is now, and that's what upsets the people who currently run that industry.
Re:Seems bad at first, yet.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Your point? So you can record at a higher quality, big deal. This is _EXACTLY_ like someone with cable taping a show from a broadcast network for a friend with crappy "rabbit-ears" reception. The video editing you speak of is already easy enough to do with todays (or last tuesdays) tech.
Media companies need to adapt their business models, not buy laws to prop up their outdated plans.
Washington Post's Take (Score:3, Informative)
click here [216.239.39.100] for the google cached version of this story. Which apparently appeared in the Washington Post on May 6, 2002.
"Piracy" -- The Source Of All Evils (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, there are several much larger impediments, namely: 1)most consumers find the existing system of buying/renting videos to be good enough, and 2)lack of reliable broadband availability.
Length of Copyright (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyright, when the U.S. was founded back in the late 1700s, was 20 years. Keep in mind that publishing and distributing a book was a major undertaking. It could take YEARS for copies in any number to make it from Atlanta to New York. Distribution was a NIGHTMARE.
Now, copyrighted material can be commercially exploited by the author/publisher (rights holder) mere SECONDS after publication. Movies routinely open on 3,000+ screen; books have million-copy runs; CDs and DVDs sell hundreds of thousands in a single day. It has gotten unimaginably easier for the rights-holder to capitalize on the product.
Yet, copyright has been lengthened to absurd limits. "Life of the author + x years", with X changing depending on if it is a "work for hire" or not.
I would be open to giving the copyright-holders rights along what the mentioned bill outlines, if the rights-holders would be open to reducing terms of copyright to something 30 years NON-EXTENDABLE.
Re:Length of Copyright (Score:3, Interesting)
Consider "traditional" copyright law:
* Copyright restrictions only applied to publishers.
* The length of copyright was 14 years and could only be held by the author not the publisher.
* Copyrights could be renewed once for an additional 14 years for a few.
* Copyrights could not be transferred, not even to one's heirs.
* To receive a copyright, an archival copy was required to be sent to the Library of Congress.
* Copyright did not apply any grant to derivative works.
* Copyright did not apply to public speeches, music (the notes not the words), and a whole host of things it now covers.
So we're in a situation where copyright has become a grant to cartels with no quid pro quo. The publishers are no longer even required to deposit sources with the Library of Congress, so they can receive copyright on films, embargo the product after it's first few runs, and before the lengthy term expires the original doesn't even exist (defeating the entire purpose of copyright in establishing a public repository of knowledge).
The extension of copyright to derivitive works coupled with the lengthy terms has allowed publishers to amass portfolios that cover the entire landscape of popular culture. While Hollywood likes to complain against "government regulation" it couldn't survive in it's current form in a truly capitlist competative environment. George Lucas is insulated from competition. He can produce 'Attack of the Clones' without any worry about competition because he can resort to the heavy hand of government to censor any alternative 'Star Wars' story. Traditional copyright law would protect that first publication only for the sole purpose that it would encourage alternate and competiting stories.
Public officials, corporations, and even religions (Scientology) have used the perversion of copyright law to outright censor political speech. A public speech or statement should be just that public and traditional copyright law would never allow Martin Luther King's heirs to extort those wishing only display history, nor would it allow current politicans to censor their opponents by prohibiting the rebroadcast of speeches seen on CSPAN.
Re:Length of Copyright (Score:2)
Many copyrighted items like books, movies, etc. aren't so topical that they would not survive 5 years on the shelf.
20-30 years would be close to the threshold where the publishing companies can't afford to "wait it out".
Yes, there is telling... (Score:2)
Selling of copyright rights is the beast (Score:2, Interesting)
Artist A created song B which is a probable hit.
He then sell all rights for that song
to some syndicate C for a fixed sum.
Then for all that A1 A2
on songs will be at C and they will care not of fair use or other stuff or...
Imagine situation, when by law they cannot sell more than 50% of their rights on song.
It means that they have direct decisions on how their material will be used. It will be much fairer to them and society.
Re:Selling of copyright rights is the beast (Score:2)
They have direct decisions already, and they choose to sell it.
Whats the big deal?
So, basically, what you want, is to take away artists rights in order to give them back to them, but not really.
Thats not a good idea.
Gutenberg(sp?) redux (Score:4, Insightful)
Years ago there was no mass publishing, information could be tightly controlled, accessable by only those with the books, or access to them, or those with the sizable sum necessary to pay a scribe to copy one.
Along comes Gutenberg and his printing press, all hell breaks loose. Suddenly the cost of reproducing data decreases, consequently it costs less to purchase as well, so there are more who can afford it. The Powers That Be (PTB) freak out completely, and begin to exert all manner of controls over the presses and the publishers.
After some time the PTB settle on a concept called copyright. Which was ok at the time, presses were still relatively rare and pricey, and it helped apease the small number of authors and scribes who were upset. But more importantly it allowed the PTB to control to some extent the dispersal of information.
Hop forward to today, now everyone it seems has their own press in the form of a PC, the PTB flip again, because their former solution is basically obsolete, no matter what the seem to try to adapt the system. Creators and publishers are up in arms again, but what can be done.
I haven't a clue where this will settle, but I do have a feeling that I'm not going to like it. Time to begin hoarding old hardware.
Buuuuut - - - (Score:2)
At any rate my point is that much of this paranoia about restrictive use I think will result in nothing because of the same reasons. If we're going to outlaw the PC, more or less as a vehicle for information dissemination then we would already outlawed the typewriter.
Fair Use, Commercials and Copyright (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider the simple provision of no longer allowing people to tape a show and lend it to a friend. Unbelieveable! I can think of many times that I've simply forgotten to record a show, and really want to see it, but it would be illegal for me to request it from a friend as that would now be copyright infringement. I suppose I could wait for the five or more years to see it in syndication (if it gets syndicated) or buy the DVD or VHS tape (if they bother to release it.)
I think a fair amount of the problem is simply access to the content. Companies are stricting controlling access to all of their "content", even if it is pure drivel that only rapid fanatics would be interested in. It strikes me that any provision to disallow the simple sharing of tapes should also be accompanied by some kind of compulsory license on the content. If they want to be able to restrict it's dissemenation then they also need to make it available at a reasonable price. For example consider all of the "crap" DVDs that get sold at Walmart. Wouldn't a couple of episodes of Red Dwarf or MST3K be worth approximately the same as say the $10 copy of Excalibur?
People want content, companies want money. People don't want to be forced into a limited pay-per use society, despite the fact that companies desperately want that, because it allows them to help crippled business models limp along for another few years. I'm glad to see that Universal is potentially getting it right, finally. [sfgate.com]
Fair use seems to be such a straight-forward thing. I have written my representatives several times about this. I can only hope that they will support Boucher in his attempts to straighten things out fairly. Though even he does occassionally stray from being our consumer protectionist champion.
Reconcile? (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider me a troll or whatever. I'm just honestly looking for a logical argument that somehow copyright law needs to be adjusted because the medium has changed.
Under prior law, copying works without due authorization has been illegal and punishable by fine and/or imprisonment.
How does new and proposed law change that fact?
As nearly as I can see, new law seeks only to take away our rights to secure our purchases with backup or to transfer medium. It also seeks to control which devices can access the media the works are published on.
I find this to be unfair and a strike against innovation and the free market. It also further removes the classic "american tinker" that this country's industry and strength came from.
I guess I'm deviating from my original quesiton quite a bit. So to restate the question: How does new and proposed law become necessary simply because new media is available for publication?
Re:well (Score:2, Informative)
word-test.doc - 966 KB
word-test.pdf - 1,646 KB
Re:tough choices (Score:2, Insightful)
If fair use is removed from copyright, then copyright will no longer work in the way it was intended - to promote science, research etc.
The best solution is to severely limit what can be copyrighted, remove patents entirely, and limit the amount of time that something can be copyrighted for to, say 25 years.
Re:tough choices (Score:2)
Re:tough choices (Score:2)
I disagree. Oterhwise the Japanese would own the world. Its not technology. Pure and simple, its colonialism backed up by lots of steel, and a period free of plagues and other epidemics on western soil. Oh, and lots and lots of borrowed capital (6 trillion at this point.)
Re:tough choices (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, technology is what has kept us free of plagues and allowed steel to flow freely and cheaply.
Re:tough choices (Score:2)
Re:tough choices (Score:3, Insightful)
And how will technology improve once Fair Use is abandoned? Arn't current mega-corps trying to limit the techology we're CURRENTLY using so that they can make more money?
Do you really want to live in a world where you get a micro-charge everytime you listen to a song on your RIAA-certified-music-player? Or have to buy a song again if you want to listen to it on a portable device instead of a home system? And pay another micro-charge if you want to listen to it at the computer?
We have technology now that can easilly move copyrighted material between various mediums, making for a very powerful approach to a data-driven life.
It sounds like you want this technology to be limited to satisfy these content provider's way of business, all for what? So that we can have better technology? Killing this current technology will bring something better? I'd like to know, what?
Fair use is important.
nice troll (Score:2)
First you shun thousands of years of cultural thinking and even go down the GOD road.
Then you say that the development of the modern world was down to technology, but using a very narrow definition of technology.
While it is true that some 'Christian' morals were abandoned (mainly the power-monger ones to do with science being black magic &co), general communist type morals were eroded and replaced with strict ownership laws, e.g. feudalism etc.. These rights are/were slowly being given back to the people.
simple choices, biased voices (Score:5, Insightful)
First, by the very fact that this legislation is being submitted, we know that the "established laws and traditions" which are being challenged by "emerging ways of the digital revolution" (btw, "digital revolution" is a dead giveaway, nobody who isn't on the industry dole would say that) is in fact the institution of copyright, which is being challenged by what I will call the Even Fairer Use practice of modern free information sharing. Thus the whole premise of your post is backward: you suggest that technology has somehow threatened our ability to take advantage of the Fair Use rights granted to us under current law, which couldn't be further from the truth. Of course, as a PR industry representative, your goal is not discussion but confusion, so such consistency would not interest you.
Your framing of the issue also makes your bias blatantly obvious: you suggest that Fair Use rights are in dispute, while tacitly assuming that copyright is necessary. To illustrate this point, let me rephrase one of your paragraphs: "What is copyright? Did God intend for us to have copyrights? Do animals have copyrights? Clearly, reasoning on this level leads quickly to absurdity." By your own "reasoning," this suggests that copyrights are as open to question (i.e., not inalienable) as are Fair Use rights, and you make no effort to show why one is preferable to another. In fact, copyright is the institutionalized restriction of the right to free speech, which you call inalienable; sounds like we should question the "conventional wisdom" about keeping copyright.
Next, you betray your insider knowledge that your industry trade group plans to continue purchasing this kind of offensive legislation until it succeeds. Gotta be careful about that. And you engage in some Western jingoism about technology, which is implicitly equated with copyright. Unfortunately, you fail to point out that much of this technology (e.g., the Internet) was created by government and university research which would have been impossible if intellectual property law was written the way industry wants it to be.
Then you suggest that we abandon common sense, suggesting that it has happened before without giving a single specific example, again for "technology" (and another slice of jingoism), which you again fail to link to copyright.
Your last paragraph, though, is by far the most obviously industry-funded. You dismiss "Fair Use" as an "anachronism" and an "antiquated ideal," without mentioning a single thing which might be wrong with it. I would suggest that it is copyright which is the antiquated anachronism in an age when digital copying allows us to benefit huge numbers of people for almost no cost. Surely that would accomplish "the improvement of the society of Man." You suggest that this bill and others like it will somehow result in improved technology, again without specifying how; in fact, it will not do this in any way. Finally, you attempt to flatter and browbeat the reader by suggesting that he is elite, and that elite people ought to favor this type of legislation, again without any sort of explanation why. Of course, this is because your reason for favoring this legislation is that it will either preserve or increase the profits that your employer makes from restricting the rights of others to distribute information.
Finally, your presentation is not credible. Your post contains zero grammar or spelling errors, no technological jargon or acronyms, and multiple marketing buzzwords. You are obviously not a programmer or a sysadmin; your background is clearly marketing and public relations.
I am very concerned that this post was moderated to 5. This means one of two things: either PR people are not just posting to Slashdot but also moderating, or the average Slashdot moderator is unable to recognize PR rhetoric when they see it. I submit this message in the hopes of helping to fix the latter if it is the case.
Parent
Re:simple choices, biased voices (Score:2, Insightful)
While you make some good points, you are being overly harsh. This guy, while maybe a bit misguided, had some good things to say. It is a viewpoint. You disagree. Fine. Maybe he has bought into something that you find suspect, fine too. Give the guy a break. Kidding? I hope so. If not, you are kidding yourself. What are you trying to say, that we only support one viewpoint here? and that since something else is posted that it is suspicious? That is total crap.
Perhaps I will get modded down for this, but I think you need a nap or something. While you have a good point, saying that this viewpoint has no place in the discussion here is just crap.
Re:tough choices (Score:3, Insightful)
Neither is copyright a natural law. There is no scarcity in information - hence, copyright is a balance between content creators (copyright) and content consumers (fair use). You can't remove one and have a system that maximizes economic benefit.
Re:tough choices (Score:2)
If you cannot quote and comment, you cannot speak.
Re:tough choices (Score:3, Insightful)
Speech is not an inalienable right. You might have learned that if you had taken the time to review the "deep philosophical and moral framework" rather than pretend it does not exist.
As for your rhetorical questions, yes, clearly, reasoning on that level "leads quickly to absurdity."
Whether or not the West has triumphed due to it's technology (putting aside the question of whether it has triumphed at all) is a question that helps little to answer how technology advanced in the first place. It answers even less the question of whether triumph is in and of itself a good thing. Atilla the Hun may have thought so. I would like to think we in the west have more to offer, like democracy.
While I know nothing of the "Age of Reconnaisance," as for the great thinkers of the past three or four centuries, they would all likely say that technology may change our lives and our experiences but only knowledge can change our values. The bomb may change our experience by giving us a new question for our value system but it doesn't provide much in the way of answers.
As for fair use being antiquated, is that addage about standing on the shoulders of giants just commie propaganda? Isn't the point of art and expression in the sharing? Shouldn't the laws be written by the people who will be held to them rather than the technologists who will execute them?
You were close with your end goal of "the improvement of the society of man" But the gifts of the "technological elite" should be accepted or rejected not by their creators but by their beneficiaries and victims."
Re:Too broad on a bill.... (Score:4, Funny)
They might not arrest you, but they will certainly make fun of you.
Parent
Re:More on topic than others.... (Score:2)
Music Online Competition Act (Score:3, Informative)
And the TPC fax gateway [tpc.int] Website is running now.