Sunday, October 05, 2008
Congress Sends Controversial Copyright Bill to Bush's Desk
E-Commerce News: "Congress has passed a piece of legislation designed to help toughen enforcement of copyright laws, particularly those who use P2P technology to share music online. Among other measures, the bill would establish a 'copyright czar' post in the executive branch. Bush has threatened to veto the measure on grounds of constitutionality."
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5 comments:
Really this Act justs sounds like the political backing of record studio interests, but one that has been so conceded upon by both sides that it effectively does nothing. The fact of the matter is that the percentage of the population who participates in file sharing is still rather small. Also other studies have shown that these individuals wouldn't pay for a large amount of the media they are getting for free, so really it doesn't equate to a large loss of revenue. So quit your bitching music industry and figure out a way to offer your products at a price that more of the market accepts as reasonable, or don't and enjoy what you have.
What this article does is basically show that the government is writing bull shit bills that already exist to make it look like they are doing something. This also makes me happy for the first time ever with the Bush Administration. What the government needs to do is take down the people who run the site that send out the music. Arresting individuals who do what everyone else does and making them pay 220,000 doesn't look good like a good step towards copyright which is what it is. It just tries to make it look like they are making a difference when they really aren't doing anything effecting and aren't stopping any illegal acts. It just makes themselves look stupid.
While I think that intellectual property rights and copyright law need to be protected, I think that the government has gone a little overboard with this one.
From what I understand, the bill does not change anything, it just "makes things clearer". This is not what we need our government to be focusing on right now. There are so many other more important things for them to be doing.
Also, I agree with the author that the creation of the new post is in violation of the separation of powers.
YAY Government!
By the sounds of it, this act really does nothing other than to increase the charges on infringement violators. As if $220,000 wasn't enough. Suing someone for downloading some music and/or movies anywhere in the hundreds of thousands is just stupidly excessive.
It strikes me that we need a new look at IP law. Certainly the basis of it needs to be protected somehow, but it seems like the tenancy is moving towards protecting the profitability of big studios, but not the sustainability of individual artists. In fact, too often is seems like the big names in recording and film want to edge out the independent content producers using these laws they push for. The complaint we keep hearing is that art is going to die out, but I feel like maybe the big labels and movie studios are who're really in danger.
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