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Tech at Night: Copyright flares up. Spectrum still matters too, though.

Tech at Night

So you may have heard that the Republican Study Committee pulled the copyright piece I spoke highly of over the weekend. I don’t have anything to say about this just yet. I’m going to reexamine the piece, to see if it had issues I didn’t notice in my quick read over the weekend. I’m also going to try to figure out just what’s happened. Then I’ll have more to say.

Copyright is ramping up, though. Darrell Issa is getting frisky against DMCA, and is going to push legislation. I don’t know if I support such a bill. The DMCA has issues, but for the most part it was a solid compromise that has served us well. It must not be changed lightly.

Democrats led by Zoe Lofgren are apparently looking to push back against the Safe Web Act? I’m inclined to oppose by default any Reddit-backed bill, regardless.

Funny how Barack Obama is going to Burma and saying the rule of law must prevail, even as his own administration is plotting to ignore the rule of law and issue an executive order to do what it can’t do through the Constitutional legislative process.

Kyle Boddy raises the best point, really the only good point I’ve yet seen, against ISP plans against copyright infringement: most people’s networks are insecure, using the tools provided by ISPs, even.

The House continues to investigate spectrum scarcity, even if the FCC is a laggard on the topic. Laggard and seeming to throw up obstacles at every opportunity. Control of the spectrum market is more important to them than efficient allocation.

ITU could be planning to hijack the entire Internet. What is Barack Obama doing about this? Apart from hindering Congressional oversight, that is?

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COMMENTS

  • Pingback: Tech at Night: Copyright flares up. Spectrum still matters too, though. | Liberal Whoppers

  • jarober

    the DMCA is an atrocity – it uses the Napoleanic model, where you are presumed guilty until proven innocent. It places all the power in the hands of copyright holders, who face no punishment for generating false positive takedown notices. A better question would be this one: What positive benefit are we gaining from the current copyright regime? I’ve come to the conclusion that no law would be better than what we have now. Start putting significan amounts of video onto YouTube (I’ve been doing software development videos for years), and then maybe you’ll start to see how often you get utterly absurd takedown notices.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Oh look, yet another guy whose very first comment is to oppose.

  • lineholder

    Neil, have you explained this one (below) already? If so, will you point me in that direction of the correct diary, please?

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57552225-38/senate-bill-rewrite-lets-feds-read-your-e-mail-without-warrants/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Hadn’t heard of that one. Will investigate.

  • jarober

    What a cogent response. No response on the merits – I must then presume that you like the concept of guilty until proven innocent. Maybe we should just implement the napoleanic code and be done with it.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Trololololo

    How many times have you been banned?