"Hollywood" Howard Berman To Leave Internet Subcommittee

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "'Hollywood' Howard Berman (D-CA), who chairs the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property appears to be on the way out. He is slated to move over to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, leaving his chair on the Internet subcommittee vacant. Long known for wanting to strengthen the DMCA and backing copyright grabs like the PRO-IP Act, Berman will be missed by big media. The good news is that Rick Boucher (D-VA) may be the one to replace him. Rep. Boucher has been interviewed on Slashdot and is in favor of copyright reform. They still need to win their upcoming elections and the full Commerce Committee will still be chaired by John Conyers (D-MI), though."

Boucher

[Lally Singh]

I'm in Boucher's district (the fightin' 9th!). He usually runs without significant opposition. Most of the republicans also like him. He'll be re-elected.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Offtopic, but did anyone else notice that the comments on the Slashdot Boucher interview are broken? They are in order by user ID rather than chronologically in threads.

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[Nullav]

Or perhaps posting speed is inversely proportional to the length of one's UID.

This doesn't really seem like a win..

[stormguard2099]

If he is in charge of foreign policy won't he just try and push DMCA on other countries now?

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[MightyYar]

Yeah but at least he's not our problem anymore :)

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[PachmanP]

If he is in charge of foreign policy won't he just try and push DMCA on other countries now?

Yup. The copyright laws are suitably draconian now in the good old US of A that the media companies can move move to big guns to the getting you foreigners in line.

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[WallyDrinkBeer]

Worse than that: Informers from the IFPI indicate that Sweden may be developing the knowledge to produce weapons of mass destruction. They're all stored somewhere in a closet in the pirate bay.

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[Captain_Chaos]

If he is in charge of foreign policy won't he just try and push DMCA on other countries now?

It's already way too late for that... The DMCA is US's implementation of the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) Copyright Treaty. Europe already has its own implementation of the treaty in the form of a set [wikipedia.org] of [wikipedia.org] directives [wikipedia.org] which most European countries have implemented by now, some even more draconian than the DMCA. Many other countries are following. You can see them fall one by one here [wipo.int].

So, vote the bums out!

[mi]

What's up, Democrats? Yeah, yeah... Troll, troll...

Don't put your guard down

[Yahma]

Okay, so Berman's out and Boucher may replace him, but that doesn't mean the fight is over. The media companies have enough money to change anyone's attitude toward copyright reform. Now would be a good time to let Boucher know (if you are in his district) that you too support copyright reform.

---
Boycott Nokia [nrwspd.de] - Nokia accepts 88M Euro in subsidies from Germany, and then lays off 3000 German workers.

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[MacDork]

The media companies have enough money to change anyone's attitude toward copyright reform.

I am aware, [slashdot.org] but at the moment, it's still GREAT news. Boucher has a pretty lengthy track record favoring the people over Hollywood. Berman on the other hand is the frickin' devil. Really, he's the anti-christ and Orin Hatch is Satan. Just getting Berman out of there is a huge victory! The only thing that could be better would be finding him under an anvil.... but to replace him with Boucher?!? That's a dream

Now that copyright reform is possible...

[calebt3]

...what about the long sought-after patent reform? This position wouldn't happen to have any authority in that area. would it?

Cue Bob Marley

[AndGodSed]

No DMCA no crime...

(sigh... go ahead... smite me...)

Don't forget about Mr. Tubes!

[Nemilar]

Don't forget, Ted Stevens is still a ranking member of the Senate committee on Commerce and Science.. So we've still got some nutso's hanging about.

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[ScrewMaster]

I'm not sure that Stevens qualifies as a nutso, but he certainly gives every appearance of being an ignoramus.

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[pipatron]

I thought it was "Niggers" these days?

There they go again

[nebaz]

I swear, if I hear anything more about Berman and Braga screwing things up I'll ... (hold on a sec, getting some info here). (Sheepish). Sorry, wrong story.

Foreign Affairs?

[niceone]

Would that be bombing Sweden then?

Perhaps a lame question

[zappepcs]

but does anyone know of a good website that is tracking this type of information? Some place that has it all laid out, so when we hear of a politician in the news we can quickly look up what they are responsible for, and their vote record etc. ?

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[MadnessASAP]

Perhaps if nobody has one I should start it although I am a Canadian and we really aren't interested in what our politicians do as long as they leave us out of it.

BTW I have dibs on www.wtfisthatpileofshit.com

Here are two places:

[NeutronCowboy]

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/ [washingtonpost.com]
http://www.opensecrets.org/ [opensecrets.org]

Good places to get started to figure out where everyone stands. Don't forget your congress critters home page, either.

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[Metaphorically]

Good advice. I made a couple search plugins for Firefox [latenightpc.com] to help with that. There's one for OpenSecrets.org [latenightpc.com] and one for the Library of Congress THOMAS [latenightpc.com] system (bills and legislative information).

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[ScrewMaster]

Have you tried this one [foxnews.com]?

That's a joke, son.

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[ilikepi314]

That's 103%. How does that work? Unless maybe its those voting machines...

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[Lally Singh]

As someone who's had someone ask me similar questions about results I've put up on the past (not politics, but tables of percentages), the answer's straightforward: the numbers are rounded. If given full precision on the numbers, they'll total exactly 100%.

Well, it could also be noise in the polls. Hard to tell where they put in their margin of error.

FAIR USE Act

[underwhelm]

Boucher has a bill in the house to revise the DMCA [house.gov]. Don't forget to contact your congressperson to encourage them to support this necessary reform.

only on slashdot

[BCGlorfindel]

Isn't moving to foreign affairs a move up?
Isn't it even worse to have a corporate shill influencing foreign policy?
Forgive my lack of enthusiasm, I forgot that now your internets are safe :(.

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[Xeth]

Yes, but when it comes to US foreign policy, all representatives are assumed to be equally incompetent.

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[quanticle]

It might seem like that, but, the fact is, Congress has a pretty weak role in US foreign policy these days. Most real foreign policy initiatives are pushed by the executive, and the legislature has a reactive "approve or deny" role. Therefore, while foreign policy might be a more prestigious assignment, the scope for coming up with new and harmful policies is more limited.

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[mqduck]

Most real foreign policy initiatives are pushed by the executive, and the legislature has a reactive "approve or deny" role

I assume by "approve or deny" you really meant "approve or criticize viciously and then approve".

Committee on Foreign Affairs?

[nurb432]

This could be far worse in the long run. WTO expansion anyone?

Two words ...

[ScrewMaster]

"Good riddance".

Now if we can just get him to leave Congress ...

Commerce is headed by Dingell, not Conyers

[sacolcor]

This article has a major fact wrong. John Conyers chairs the Judiciary Committee. John Dingell (also from Michigan) chairs the Energy and Commerce committee. While Conyers has indeed backed Hollywood's positions on copyright, Dingell has not - at least, not as strongly.