5 ms·

Biden's "IP roundtable" brings together Big Content, FBI

34 points by alexandros 17y ago

philk 17y ago
Entrenched interests have always fought progress, whether it was French button makers in the 17th century (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070110/004225.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070110/004225.shtml) or Big Content today. Thankfully economics always seems to win out in the end. It's just disappointing that our elected representatives aren't concerned with representing us.
- sfk 17y ago
  Is copyright infringement progress? I'm sure the plurk.com folks would not agree. Long live double standards.
  - philk 17y ago
    I'd call heavily reduced costs of distribution progress. Ultimately (when the dust settles) it will mean that a greater proportion of your music dollar can go to artists who create songs and less to the intermediaries. Really, the idea that someone can write, produce and perform a song, upload and market it themselves and then either sell it to people across the globe or make money off extras (ie concerts, merchandise, etc) is unbelievably cool compared with what had to happen in the past.
  - tsally 17y ago
    Did plurk sue a poor PhD student who downloaded 30 songs and win a judgement against them for almost $700,000? There's a right way and a wrong way to handle copyright infringement. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/o-tenenbaum-riaa-wins-675000-or-22500-per-song.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/o-tenenbaum-...
    - sfk 17y ago
      This is a straw man. I primarily objected to the use of the word "progress" as a euphemism for "copyright infringement". It is fundamentally wrong to support one kind of infringement while condemning another. The damages awarded in the U.S. are completely out of hand and this needs to be addressed immediately, but that is a separate issue.
      - gloob 17y ago
        It is fundamentally wrong to support one kind of infringement while condemning another. I would disagree, actually. By way of comparison, most countries have multiple distinct crimes or not-crimes that "killing someone" can fall into: killing an enemy soldier in wartime is generally okayed, offing a fetus is okayed in many countries, killing someone by accident is (broadly speaking) manslaughter, and doing it intentionally (if it doesn't fall into one of the above categories) is murder. I don't see any terribly compelling reason why similar divisions couldn't be worked out for the copyright issue.
        roc 17y ago
        It already was worked out. It was formerly separated out into theft, piracy and infringement and commercial and non-commercial variants. But the entrenched interests have been busily working and spending away to knock down those distinctions, because it prohibited their ability to utterly financially destroy an accused file-sharer to make an example to the others. The distinctions also weakened their attempted argument of conflating the morality and legality of personal sharing, format shifting and time shifting with commercial infringement and outright theft.
        roc 17y ago
        Why exactly did that get downvoted? Is the No Electronic Theft Act that criminalized some non-commercial re-distribution not part of the public record? Is the RIAAs attempt to get the justice department pursue file-sharers under the No Electronic Theft Act not a published fact? Did the "Pirate Act" not seek to criminalize a broader group of non-commercial infringement? Did the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 not shift the burden of policing copyright from the copyright holder to colleges and universities under threat of withholding federal financial assistance for non-compliance? Do the leaked ACTA documents not show yet-another attempted expansion for treating file-sharing as a criminal act? Is the RIAAs legal strategy against peer-to-peer users not commonly known? It's not like I'm spinning conspiracy theories here. There are stacks of information in the public record about the content industry's push to remove the distinctions between commercial and non-commercial and civil and criminal infringement.
Raphael 17y ago
Like, gag me with a spoon.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
eli 17y ago
It is kind of telling that they didn't even bother inviting someone from a consumer group just for the appearance of a robust discussion. I mean, they still invited the Solomon Islands to the climate conference even though we all know what they'll say and they have no pull in making actual decisions.
- tptacek 17y ago
  Curious: what consumer group should they have invited? The EFF isn't a consumer advocacy group; they're an issues advocacy group.
  - eli 17y ago
    Well, hey, if it were me I'd surely have invited the EFF along with Larry Lessig. But I was thinking someone from a group like Consumers Union or even Public Citizen (if they're not still considered too "radical"). Heck, even inviting the consumer electronics lobby would get a little diversity of opinion (they're not big fans of DRM).
CWuestefeld 17y ago
Given Biden's history of plagiarism (e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/18/us/biden-admits-plagiarism-in-school-but-says-it-was-not-malevolent.html http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/18/us/biden-admits-plagiarism... ), his defense of intellectual property is rather ironic. Perhaps he's there as the voice of "sharers".
- sachinag 17y ago
  Honestly, seriously, how is this germane to actual policy? I get it - a speechwriter on a presidential campaign stole a speech wholecloth 20 years ago. Maybe it was even Biden himself. But I'm honestly flummoxed on how this relates to a policy discussion today.
  - CWuestefeld 17y ago
    Obviously it doesn't help us with this specific policy. But 1. It's fun to be snarky; and 2. It's useful to remember that those who claim to be applying their wisdom to guide the rest of us are, in reality, no better than the unwashed masses. And thus, their promises to provide us with solutions that the best minds of the private sector couldn't execute are unlikely to reach fruition.
    - samstokes 17y ago
      In the UK version of this debate, politicians supporting copyright enforcement measures keep saying "we feel that taking someone else's work without paying for it is wrong". This is especially hilarious in the wake of a Parliament-wide expenses scandal. When exactly did career politicians win the moral high ground?

34 points by alexandros 17y ago

philk 17y ago

Entrenched interests have always fought progress, whether it was French button makers in the 17th century (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070110/004225.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070110/004225.shtml) or Big Content today. Thankfully economics always seems to win out in the end. It's just disappointing that our elected representatives aren't concerned with representing us.

sfk 17y ago
Is copyright infringement progress? I'm sure the plurk.com folks would not agree. Long live double standards.
- philk 17y ago
  I'd call heavily reduced costs of distribution progress. Ultimately (when the dust settles) it will mean that a greater proportion of your music dollar can go to artists who create songs and less to the intermediaries. Really, the idea that someone can write, produce and perform a song, upload and market it themselves and then either sell it to people across the globe or make money off extras (ie concerts, merchandise, etc) is unbelievably cool compared with what had to happen in the past.
- tsally 17y ago
  Did plurk sue a poor PhD student who downloaded 30 songs and win a judgement against them for almost $700,000? There's a right way and a wrong way to handle copyright infringement. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/o-tenenbaum-riaa-wins-675000-or-22500-per-song.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/o-tenenbaum-...
  - sfk 17y ago
    This is a straw man. I primarily objected to the use of the word "progress" as a euphemism for "copyright infringement". It is fundamentally wrong to support one kind of infringement while condemning another. The damages awarded in the U.S. are completely out of hand and this needs to be addressed immediately, but that is a separate issue.
    - gloob 17y ago
      It is fundamentally wrong to support one kind of infringement while condemning another. I would disagree, actually. By way of comparison, most countries have multiple distinct crimes or not-crimes that "killing someone" can fall into: killing an enemy soldier in wartime is generally okayed, offing a fetus is okayed in many countries, killing someone by accident is (broadly speaking) manslaughter, and doing it intentionally (if it doesn't fall into one of the above categories) is murder. I don't see any terribly compelling reason why similar divisions couldn't be worked out for the copyright issue.
      - roc 17y ago
        It already was worked out. It was formerly separated out into theft, piracy and infringement and commercial and non-commercial variants. But the entrenched interests have been busily working and spending away to knock down those distinctions, because it prohibited their ability to utterly financially destroy an accused file-sharer to make an example to the others. The distinctions also weakened their attempted argument of conflating the morality and legality of personal sharing, format shifting and time shifting with commercial infringement and outright theft.
        roc 17y ago
        Why exactly did that get downvoted? Is the No Electronic Theft Act that criminalized some non-commercial re-distribution not part of the public record? Is the RIAAs attempt to get the justice department pursue file-sharers under the No Electronic Theft Act not a published fact? Did the "Pirate Act" not seek to criminalize a broader group of non-commercial infringement? Did the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 not shift the burden of policing copyright from the copyright holder to colleges and universities under threat of withholding federal financial assistance for non-compliance? Do the leaked ACTA documents not show yet-another attempted expansion for treating file-sharing as a criminal act? Is the RIAAs legal strategy against peer-to-peer users not commonly known? It's not like I'm spinning conspiracy theories here. There are stacks of information in the public record about the content industry's push to remove the distinctions between commercial and non-commercial and civil and criminal infringement.

Raphael 17y ago

Like, gag me with a spoon.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

eli 17y ago

It is kind of telling that they didn't even bother inviting someone from a consumer group just for the appearance of a robust discussion. I mean, they still invited the Solomon Islands to the climate conference even though we all know what they'll say and they have no pull in making actual decisions.

tptacek 17y ago
Curious: what consumer group should they have invited? The EFF isn't a consumer advocacy group; they're an issues advocacy group.
- eli 17y ago
  Well, hey, if it were me I'd surely have invited the EFF along with Larry Lessig. But I was thinking someone from a group like Consumers Union or even Public Citizen (if they're not still considered too "radical"). Heck, even inviting the consumer electronics lobby would get a little diversity of opinion (they're not big fans of DRM).

CWuestefeld 17y ago

Given Biden's history of plagiarism (e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/18/us/biden-admits-plagiarism-in-school-but-says-it-was-not-malevolent.html http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/18/us/biden-admits-plagiarism... ), his defense of intellectual property is rather ironic. Perhaps he's there as the voice of "sharers".

sachinag 17y ago
Honestly, seriously, how is this germane to actual policy? I get it - a speechwriter on a presidential campaign stole a speech wholecloth 20 years ago. Maybe it was even Biden himself. But I'm honestly flummoxed on how this relates to a policy discussion today.
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  Obviously it doesn't help us with this specific policy. But 1. It's fun to be snarky; and 2. It's useful to remember that those who claim to be applying their wisdom to guide the rest of us are, in reality, no better than the unwashed masses. And thus, their promises to provide us with solutions that the best minds of the private sector couldn't execute are unlikely to reach fruition.
  - samstokes 17y ago
    In the UK version of this debate, politicians supporting copyright enforcement measures keep saying "we feel that taking someone else's work without paying for it is wrong". This is especially hilarious in the wake of a Parliament-wide expenses scandal. When exactly did career politicians win the moral high ground?