
Biden's "IP roundtable" brings together Big Content, FBI - alexandros
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/12/bidens-ip-roundtable-brings-together-big-content-fbi.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss
======
eli
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
Curious: what consumer group should they have invited? The EFF isn't a
consumer advocacy group; they're an issues advocacy group.

~~~
eli
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).

------
philk
Entrenched interests have always fought progress, whether it was French button
makers in the 17th century
(<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
Is copyright infringement progress? I'm sure the plurk.com folks would not
agree. Long live double standards.

~~~
tsally
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-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/news/2009/07/o-tenenbaum-riaa-wins-675000-or-22500-per-song.ars)

~~~
sfk
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
_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
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
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.

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

~~~
sachinag
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
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
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?

------
Raphael
Like, gag me with a spoon.

