Techdirt. Stories about "congress" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories about "congress"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Wed, 16 Jun 2010 20:00:13 PDT Once Again, The Justice Department Fails To Tell Congress About Its Wiretapping Activities, As Required By Law Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100616/0200059845.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100616/0200059845.shtml Julian Sanchez points us to the disturbing news that, despite being required by law to report to Congress each year on "the number of pen register orders and orders for trap and trace devices applied for by law enforcement agencies of the Department of Justice," it appears that for many years the Attorney General has delivered no such report. This has happened before as well. In 2004, the Justice Department dumped five years worth of reports on Congress, and it appears it did so again in 2009. Meaning that Congress did not get the interim annual reports. That would mean that for five year periods, Congress -- who is supposed to be overseeing such surveillance activity -- has not been doing its job, effectively allowing the Justice Department to do what it wants with such surveillance efforts. And, remember, this is a Justice Department that has already been found to have massively abused surveillance activity beyond what the law allows. Doesn't that make you feel safer?

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]]> who-watches-this-stuff http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100616/0200059845 Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:15:22 PDT Lobbyists Get Congress To Investigate P2P Software... Rather Than Bad Security And Employee Carelessness Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090422/0309434604.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090422/0309434604.shtml reason this story hasn't received that much attention: because it's a bogus story that's been debunked for years -- but it's a favorite of the entertainment industry and its lobbyists in trying to come up with any reason to get Congress to issue laws against file sharing software.

However, it was obvious that this PR campaign was a setup: something bigger was underway... and, indeed, now we find out that these entertainment industry lobbyists have had a chance to bubble up yet again this silly idea to Congress, leading to yet another investigation of file sharing services, with a specific focus on Limewire. Of course, we did this already. Two years ago, there was a bunch of grandstanding in Congress against Limewire because some gov't officials had leaked documents possibly (though, not definitely) via Limewire. But, of course, the target was wrong. It wasn't Limewire that was the problem, it was government employees being stupid and setting up private government documents in their shared folders and poor government computer security systems that allowed this to happen. But rather than blame bad gov't computer security or clueless users, the government set upon Limewire as the problem (encouraged, of course, by the entertainment industry's lobbyists).

The PR campaign and the Congressional investigation didn't happen in the same month by accident. You can pretty much assume that the whole effort was orchestrated by these lobbyists as yet another misguided attack on file sharing software, playing up the ridiculous idea that it's the software that's responsible for people leaking documents, rather than user stupidity and bad security.

It's nice to see some in the mainstream press not fall for this bogus story. The LA Times notes how pointless this effort is, pointing out how the whole thing is misguided, and accurately noting:
Perhaps the real motive here is to find grounds to ban the software outright, which would please Hollywood but wouldn't solve the problem.
Of course, not all mainstream publications bothered to figure that out. Five days after Arts+Labs pitched me on the "Limewire-is-a-security-leak-problem" story, the WSJ published exactly that story, including (of course!) a quote from Arts+Labs, and no quotes from anyone who would point out what a made up story it is, and how it's been planted by the entertainment industry in an effort to create a moral panic against P2P software. I thought the mainstream press was supposed to be where real journalists did their homework rather than just parroting the story lobbyists hand them?

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]]> well,-look-at-that http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090422/0309434604 Tue, 9 Dec 2008 16:10:00 PST Congress Slams Kevin Martin For Abuse Of Power Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081209/1223123065.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081209/1223123065.shtml telcos, even when his views are exactly the opposite for telcos when compared to cable companies. The worst, however, may have been his awkward attempt to not just bury an analysis that showed that a la carte cable would be more expensive -- but to come out with a totally different report claiming the opposite.

Congress has now released a report slamming Martin for widespread abuses of power during his chairmanship, noting his efforts to force the FCC to bury the original report and publish the new report. He ordered the group to rewrite the report with the opposite findings and demoted the guy who wrote the original report. The Congressional report also noted that Martin had failed to properly oversee various telco slushfunds. You know all those extra "fees" the telcos charge? Basically it all goes into a big fund controlled by the telcos (not the gov't) with almost no oversight. The Congressional report specifically dings Martin for his oversight (or lack thereof) of the Telecommunications Relay Service Fund. Apparently, Martin ignored plenty of evidence that the telcos were overcharging, and let them just keep collecting. And, on top of that the FCC did little to actually audit the program.

It's also worth noting that Congress decided to release the report without holding hearings, noting: "due to the climate of fear that pervades the FCC...we found that key witnesses were unwilling to testify or even to have their names become known." Good thing they got that figured out just about a month before he's leaving office...

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]]> good-thing-they-waited-until-he-was-done http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20081209/1223123065 Tue, 8 Jul 2008 16:36:34 PDT Politician Using Twitter To Ignite Misleading Partisan Fight Over Politicians Posting To Twitter Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080708/1602521624.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080708/1602521624.shtml really using Twitter to communicate with people. It was a great use of the technology. However, today he's been using Twitter to ignite a totally misguided partisan war, pretending (falsely) that Democrats are trying to prevent him from using Twitter. First, he announced on Twitter that "the Dems are trying to censor Congressmen's ability to use Twitter" claiming that "They want to require prior approval of all posts to any public social media/internet/www site by any member of Congress!!!" Fascinating, and troubling, if true, but it's not actually true.

The actual issue is one that we discussed a few months back. Existing House rules actually forbid members of Congress from posting "official communications" on other sites. This was first noticed by a first-term Congressman who was worried that posting videos on YouTube violated this rule. Other Congressional Reps told him to not worry about it as everyone ignored that rule, and no one would get in trouble for using various social media sites such as YouTube. However, that Congressman pushed forward, and eventually got Congress to act. Of course, rather than fixing the real problem (preventing Reps from posting on social media sites), they simply asked YouTube to allow Reps to post videos in a "non-commercial manner." YouTube agreed, and that was that.

However, the existing rules still stood. Culberson's complaint stems for a letter (pdf) sent by Democratic Rep. Michael Capuano, suggesting that the rules actually be changed to be loosened to deal with this situation and make it easier to post content on various social media sites. Culberson, however, bizarrely claims that this is the Democrats trying to limit what he can say on Twitter. But that's actually not at all what the letter states. The problem isn't this letter, but the existing rules that are already in place. In fact, based on the letter, it would appear that this would make it possible for Congressional Reps to Twitter, so long as their bio made it clear they were Reps.

A bunch of people tried to understand this, and even I asked him to clarify why the problem was with this new letter, as opposed to the existing rules. His response did not address the question at all -- but rather was the identical response he sent to dozens of people who questioned his claims. He notes that based on the letter, each Twitter message must meet "existing content rules and regulations." Indeed, but the problem is that's already true based on those existing content rules and regulations. The problem isn't this new effort, but those existing rules and regulations, which mean that his existing Twitter messages violated the rules.

It's really disappointing to see someone who had embraced the technology use it to try to whip up Twitter users into a frenzy, while misleading them to do so -- and then not using the tools to respond to actual criticisms. The problem here is that the existing rules for Reps is problematic. It's not this new effort to loosen the rules, other than in the fact that the loosening of the rules might not go far enough. That's not, as Culberson claims, an attempt to censor him on Twitter, but simply an attempt to loosen the rules with a focus on YouTube and (most likely) with an ignorance of the fact that Twitter even exists.

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]]> politics-as-usual http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080708/1602521624 Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:21:00 PDT Senate Tries To Roll Back FCC Ownership Rules; Apparently Still Hasn't Heard Of The Internet Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080426/172717958.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080426/172717958.shtml relax media ownership rules in a really minor way. Basically, with the FCC ruling, a newspaper could purchase an also-ran TV station. It could only buy a station that wasn't in the top 4 in the market. Yet, this got people up in arms over some nefarious "media consolidation" claims. Yet, these claims make no sense. There are more media outlets than ever before in history, and there are more ways and more sources to get your news from than ever before in history. Yes, many of them are online, but that doesn't change the fact that they exist. But apparently, the Senate is unaware of that. It has started a process to invalidate the FCC's changes, claiming that it's "not healthy for this country" to only have a few major media outlets. That might be a point worth debating if it were true, but it's not. Meanwhile, no one's explained what's so problematic about a newspaper company owning a TV station at the same time. Considering that it only applies to 5th ranked or beyond TV stations, it's not as if it will somehow block out the voices from other stations.

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]]> media-options http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080426/172717958 Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:19:02 PDT FBI Wants More Power To Monitor Internet Activity Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080423/184451932.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080423/184451932.shtml computer network working properly, would rather just have more widespread access to spy on the computer network everyone else uses: the internet. Talking to Congress today, the FBI proposed a few different things, including the right to more widely spy on internet activity as well as legislation to force ISPs to retain log file data for an extended period of time. While the Congressional reps in attendance seemed to respond by saying "sure, sounds great" to both of these suggestion, both should actually be looked at much more closely.

More freedom to spy on internet usage potentially violates the 4th Amendment as well as federal wiretap laws. Given the evidence that the FBI has widely abused its ability to wiretap, this should be a major concern. As for data retention, problems with such an idea have been chronicled for years. It tends to put a tremendous expense on ISPs for no real reason -- and it tends to make it even harder to find the type of data authorities actually need to deal with criminal activities. If you're in the FBI, it's no surprise that you'd want both things in place, but that hardly means Congress should roll over and give them to the FBI.

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]]> because-they're-so-trustworthy http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080423/184451932 Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:16:00 PDT AT&T-Funded Politicians Accuse Google Of Gaming The Spectrum Auction System Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080416/193631869.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080416/193631869.shtml wasn't "fleecing" taxpayers as some lobbyists had contended. Yet, it appears that the lobbying has been effective. A set of Congressional representatives have started asking whether or not Google gamed the system. This is a pretty bizarre claim against a company that put up $4.6 billion in an auction and was then outbid. Clearly, in putting up the bid, there was a chance that Google could have won and had to pay the $4.6 billion. There's no rule that Google had to keep bidding. The company stopped at the point at which it was comfortable bidding. Of course, it will probably surprise no one that if you look at the top campaign contributor to all 3 representatives attacking Google's actions, you'll notice a pattern (in the letters A, T and T). Check it out for yourself. There's Fred Upton, Cliff Stearns and John Shimkus. You think that had something to do with their opinion on the spectrum auction process? Nah...

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]]> please-explain http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080416/193631869 Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:48:00 PST Congress Wants To Separate Church And NFL From Copyright Laws Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080211/111555226.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080211/111555226.shtml second year of stories about the NFL stopping churches from throwing Superbowl parties if they have TV screens larger than 55", it appears that some folks in Congress are stepping up to create an exception in copyright law for "houses of worship." For everyone else, the 55" limit would prevail, but churches would now be allowed to show "The Big Game" without worrying about copyright infringement charges. It's not clear why churches deserve an exemption to this law (or why the 55" limit is in the law in the first place), but don't expect that to stop politicians from jumping on a popular bandwagon issue.

Still, it's fun to watch people who clearly have no understanding of what's going on weigh in on the topic -- sometimes in well known publications. Witness a columnist for the Boston Herald who is upset about the proposed change, but for the wrong reasons. First, he appears to not understand the difference between copyright and trademark, claiming that the NFL has to enforce its copyright or it will lose it (that would actually be trademark, but who's fact checking?). He then goes on to state that "the copyrights are private property, and the league has every right within the law to profit from that property." Indeed, but banning 55" screens doesn't prevent the NFL's right to profit. In fact, this gets even more ridiculous when the guy says: "To have the government in effect confiscate that property to benefit religious institutions seems a very worrisome precedent." Wait, and having the government in effect determine the maximum size of a private TV isn't a worrisome precedent?

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]]> keep-'em-separated http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080211/111555226 Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:11:00 PST MPAA Explains Why It's Okay To Tie Federal Funds To Blocking File Sharing Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071119/180406.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071119/180406.shtml as bad as some are making it out to be, it still seems quite questionable that Congress appears to be regulating the idea that universities need to do the kind of marketing and educational campaigns that the recording industry cannot. We've asked supporters of the bill to explain how it could possibly make sense to mandate such things, and the MPAA's top lawyer, Fritz Attaway, has given his answer, claiming that it's because the internet is "used primarily to allow college students to traffic in infringing content," while being subsidized by gov't funds. It would be nice if Attaway or someone else at the MPAA could actually back up the claim that the primary use of the internet by students is infringement. While I wouldn't doubt that it's a popular use, to say that it's the primary use is hard to believe -- unless you count things like visiting Facebook pages, using Google and sending emails as "infringement." At the same time, this doesn't seem to support the reasons for this bill. After all, many kids on college campuses own cars -- and I'd imagine that most of those students break the speed limit frequently enough. Yet, we don't see any bills being proposed in Congress that would prevent financial aid funding unless universities start handing out more speeding tickets and put in place plans to offer public transportation. So why should they do that for copyright infringement?

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]]> because-we-say-so,-dammit http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20071119/180406 Thu, 15 Nov 2007 23:18:14 PST Senate Punts On Telecom Immunity Timothy Lee http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071115/194407.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071115/194407.shtml been quite a bit of confusion around the web about how the committee handled the most contentious issue: whether to grant telecom companies retroactive blanket immunity for violating their customers' privacy. It appears that after an effort to strip out the immunity language failed, the committee only referred part of the legislation out of committee, leaving the immunity provisions in limbo. The net effect will be to leave the issue to be decided by the full Senate, where we can be sure someone will offer an blanket immunity amendment. Sen. Specter, who is the leading Republican on the committee and has occasionally been critical of the Bush administration's civil liberties record, is apparently intending to offer a "compromise" that would have the government take the place of AT&T and Verizon in the privacy lawsuits now pending against them. Frankly, I have trouble seeing how this is a compromise. The problem with granting immunity liability is that it undermines the whole point of the fines, which is to give the companies an incentive to obey the law. If the government takes the telecom companies' place in the lawsuit, that saves them from paying any real penalty for breaking the law. As a result, they'll have no incentive to say no next time the executive branch asks them to do something illegal. If Congress wants the telecom industry to take the laws it writes seriously, then it has to insist that companies pay the penalty when they break them. Meanwhile, the House approved wiretapping legislation without an immunity clause. And the White House, for its part, has vowed to veto any legislation that doesn't include a get-out-of-jail-free card for the AT&T and Verizon. So there will almost certainly be a showdown, either between the House and the Senate, or between Congress and the White House.

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]]> get-out-of-jail-free http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20071115/194407 Wed, 14 Nov 2007 13:36:52 PST People Still Get Their News From Local Newspapers And TV Stations? Timothy Lee http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071113/221630.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071113/221630.shtml
Which brings us to FCC chairman Kevin Martin's New York Times op-ed defending his remarkably timid proposal to allow a newspaper in one of the 20 largest cities to purchase a TV or radio station—but not one of the metro area's four largest TV stations. Under his proposal, none of the FCC's other media ownership rules would be changed. In other words, a newspaper would be allowed to buy an also-ran TV station in a cacophonous media market like New York or LA, but the vast majority of cities would see no changes at all. Yet some members of Congress seem to think that even those miniscule changes are too much and have introduced legislation to require the FCC to spend even more time debating the issue, even though, as James Gattuso points out, that the FCC has been debating the issue for 11 years already. On the other hand, as ridiculous as the situation is, it's hard to have too much sympathy for the broadcasters. After all, they were happy to raise bogus fears of media concentration to stop the XM/Sirius merger this spring. Now the broadcasters are getting a taste of their own medicine.

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]]> massive-overreaction http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20071113/221630 Thu, 18 Oct 2007 07:30:00 PDT Congress: P2P Promotes Identity Theft! We Need New Laws! Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071018/014747.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071018/014747.shtml a national security threat. The reasoning behind this? Because some idiot gov't employees ignored policies forbidding the use of unauthorized 3rd party apps (or putting sensitive data on home computers) and misconfigured P2P apps... ending up in secure documents being available for download. In other words, even though the real fault was stupid gov't employees ignoring policies and misusing the technology... it was the technology's fault.

Apparently, that argument didn't generate enough support for a new law against P2P technology. So now the exact same group of Congressional Representatives is claiming that P2P technology is evil and must be stopped... because it promotes identity theft. The politicians (many of whom just so happen to come from places where large entertainment firms are based... though, we're sure that's a coincidence) are clearly trying to come up with an excuse (any excuse) to come up with new laws against P2P systems. Today's action involved asking the FTC to investigate this perceived threat from P2P systems and also asked whether the FTC felt it had enough enforcement powers to address this problem, or if it needed help from Congress. In other words, the well-choreographed dance has begun. We'll soon see legislation introduced to crack down on file sharing systems, officially in the name of stopping identity theft, but really thanks to campaign contributions from the entertainment industry who still hasn't realized that it's harming itself. The more they do this, the more real innovation will move elsewhere.

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]]> maybe-one-of-these-will-stick http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20071018/014747 Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:36:07 PDT How Easily Congress Removed Protection From Citizen Journalists Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071017/163655.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071017/163655.shtml continually watered down who was actually protected -- starting with anyone practicing journalism, shifting to those who made some money from journalism activities and finally moving to only covering those who make a substantial part of their living that way. Declan has the full text, highlighting the changes to each version. Of course, it's hard to see how this makes any sense. Why should your ability to make money from your journalistic efforts have any bearing on whether or not you can protect a source? Given the rise of so-called citizen journalism -- where just about anyone is a journalist -- why should only those who do it full time for money get protection?

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]]> no-profit?--no-protection! http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20071017/163655 Wed, 17 Oct 2007 07:55:00 PDT Congress Accuses Yahoo Execs Of Lying About Handing Over Info To Chinese Authorities Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071016/234002.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071016/234002.shtml earnings topped expectations -- and almost at the same time, Congress accuses company execs of lying at a hearing. Last year, after the news media finally realized that the big American internet sites were cooperating with the Chinese gov't on certain things, Congress felt it needed to hold some grandstanding hearings to make it look like they cared or might actually do something. Of course, nothing much happened at all. However, someone in Congress has noticed that something that a Yahoo exec said in those hearings doesn't seem to square up with more recent news -- meaning that Congress is back in action, asking Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and the exec in question, general counsel Michael Callahan, to explain themselves at a hearing next month. The question is how involved Yahoo was in the Chinese effort to track down and jail journalist Shi Tao. Callahan told Congress that Yahoo had no info on the case, but documents released this summer suggest otherwise.

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]]> uh-oh http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20071016/234002 Tue, 16 Oct 2007 08:37:00 PDT Will Fox Sue Congress For Simpsons Parody? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071015/122114.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071015/122114.shtml parody press release using characters from the TV show The Simpsons to try to highlight their side of the debate. This was so random and bizarre that a few people actually wondered if the Republican site had been hacked. That turned out not to be the case, but apparently none of the Representatives who put together the mock press release sought the approval of Twentieth Century Fox, who apparently is not at all happy that Simpsons characters are being used in this manner: "Twentieth Century Fox was unaware of the illegal use of characters from The Simpsons in this press release. Let me assure you, Fox did not authorize this use. Characters from The Simpsons may not be used in this manner…" Some would argue that parody is covered by fair use, but that may only be true if the parody is of The Simpsons itself, rather than using them for a parody of something else. Either way, while Congress has been bending over backwards to give the entertainment industry everything it wishes when it comes to keeping control over their creative works, it seems that even those same Representatives can think of cases where it made perfect sense to them to make use of characters without having to first license them. Somehow, why do I get the feeling this lesson won't stick and these same Reps will have no problem putting in place more stringent copyright laws that eat away at fair use?

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]]> d'oh! http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20071015/122114 Fri, 7 Sep 2007 07:03:00 PDT Why Does Congress Want Smart, Highly Educated Workers To Stay Out Of The US? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070905/224008.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070905/224008.shtml write about H1-B visas, we seem to get attacked by people who confuse the fact that there are some companies who abuse the program with the overall benefit of getting smart, highly educated workers working for American companies -- rather than against them. It certainly fits with economist's Bryan Caplan's theory that many people have specific biases that blind them to the bigger picture. All four of those biases actually come into play on this issue. The anti-market bias that doesn't recognize the benefits of competition and assumes that protectionism helps an industry, when it actually hurts. The anti-foreign bias that obviously comes into play when people seem to be against immigrants because they're "not American" even if they help the American economy. The make-work bias that falsely assumes that it's better to have people employed right now than creating an economy that will produce more, better paying jobs in the future. And, finally, the pessimistic bias that assumes that because some foreign workers may take a job from a higher paid American, that we're all going to lose our jobs.

The reality is quite different. Competition is what drives innovation and progress. By having competitors, it pushes companies to continually improve their offerings and serve the market with better and cheaper products. That's a good thing. Protecting an industry is a recipe for killing it, as it simply allows foreign competitors to run circles around the domestic players, killing off the international market and making Americans worse off. Second, having smart, well-educated foreign workers working for US companies, rather than for foreign competition clearly helps the American economy by keeping those companies strong and innovating, rather than getting crushed by foreign competition. Finally, if those American companies can do better and create new desired products, they can create more jobs. Jobs are not a zero-sum game.

Unfortunately, these biases are strong and difficult to fight. Politicians driven by polls too often succumb to them. The latest news is that Congress is against letting in more H1-B workers, guaranteeing that those workers will instead go to work for foreign companies -- working against American companies. It's difficult to see how anyone can favor that, but that's the way it is unfortunately. It is true that the H1-B program has been abused by some companies. But the answer isn't to punish the H1-B program, but to punish the abusers.

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]]> just-wondering http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20070905/224008 Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:30:03 PDT Howard Berman To Force ISPs To Do RIAA's Bidding Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070828/021736.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070828/021736.shtml require universities to act as the RIAA's servants (or Congress would take away funding) and now they're trying to do the same thing to ISPs. Rep. Howard Berman (who continually lives up to his nickname of being the Representative from Disney), the head of the Intellectual Property subcommittee (which, as Larry Lessig has pointed out, is like asking a Representative from Detroit to head up the committee on auto safety), is about to introduce legislation that would require ISPs pass on RIAA/MPAA threat letters to subscribers (found via TorrentFreak). Of course, Berman doesn't seem to note that the entertainment industry process is based on extremely flimsy evidence and the whole "settlement process" amounts to little more than an extortion shakedown from the entertainment industry. It's not easy to fight back, and often people feel compelled to settle. With ISPs forced to do their bidding, it will only encourage the entertainment industry to send out notices based on even weaker evidence, since the whole thing has become a revenue generator for them -- and this will simply increase their channel -- all with government support. This is making a mockery of the intent of copyright.

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]]> the-representative-from-hollywood-strikes-again http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20070828/021736 Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:54:47 PDT Are U.S. Educators On The Wrong Side Of The Copyright War? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070824/013844.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070824/013844.shtml block p2p file sharing or lose funding. A number of universities complained (reasonably) about the expense involved in doing so, but some are arguing that it's about time that universities got away from just the cost argument and stood against this on principle. John points us to an argument for why universities should be fighting back against copyright maximalism, noting that, of all places, universities should recognize the benefits of a freer flow of information, and how trying to artificially limit information only leads to problems. The author notes that the high price of college textbooks should be example number one of how copyright can hinder the educational purpose of a university by artificially driving up the price. Of course, these days it seems like too many of the myths from the entertainment industry have been accepted as fact -- so it seems unlikely that universities will stand up against dangerous copyright practices any time soon.

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]]> sharing-information-is-a-good-thing... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20070824/013844 Mon, 27 Aug 2007 13:55:32 PDT Unions Make Ridiculous Arguments Against Patent Reform Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070824/170344.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070824/170344.shtml argue with us in the comments, but his arguments are based on the faulty assumption that pretty much all patents are good and anyone accused of patent infringement has clearly "stolen" the hard work of someone else. The fact is that that's very rarely the case. As we've seen repeatedly, many patents should never have been issued as they don't qualify as non-obvious or they're too broad. In those cases, patents are clearly an economic hardship, and there's plenty of research to back that up. Also, most cases of patent infringement occur when multiple companies come up with the same type of solution independently, which is hardly "stealing." No matter though. By focusing on the false idea that all patent infringement is stealing, it can be a very compelling case for those who don't delve into the details.

The latest news is that Riley has convinced the AFL-CIO to come out against the latest attempt at patent reform. Now there's a lot to dislike in the latest attempt at patent reform, and we'd be upset if it passed as is. But the two specific things that the unions are complaining about are the two most reasonable things in the reform package. The first would change how damages are calculated, so that if the infringing component is only a small piece of a larger product, the damages shouldn't be based on the value of the larger product, but the value of that small piece. That seems completely fair. Why shouldn't the damages be reflective of the actual value? It's hard to see why that's controversial, but it is if you hold completely irrelevant patents and you want to hold up those companies that are actually making useful technologies. The second complaint is with making it easier to contest a patent after it's been issued. This is also a no-brainer. Given how little review goes into a current patent, along with the fact that patent examiners are given incentives to approve, rather than reject -- combined with the length of time it currently takes to get a patent reviewed, the incredibly arcane rules that everyone is required to go through to contest a patent and the quick draw of some courts who refuse to wait for the patent office to review patents, it makes sense to have a better system to make sure a patent is valid. Why would anyone be opposed to improving the quality of patents... unless they hold questionable patents?

Unfortunately, Riley's organization appears to have blinded the AFL-CIO to what's really happening. In convincing them that this is about stopping theft, he apparently left out all the economic research showing that it would actually do plenty of harm to the industries that most employ AFL-CIO workers. That's because it would limit their ability to innovate, make it more expensive to do research, and open up opportunities for foreign companies to do a much better job innovating and beating us in the market. Of course, given the history of the AFL-CIO, they must be used to that kind of effect, because that's been the result of previous policies in previous decades. In the meantime, Riley is hoping that by getting the support of unions, Democrats will feel compelled to vote against patent reform -- and, in fact, a Wall Street Journal article on this same subject suggests that the AFL-CIO's letter has been effective in slowing the reform effort. Hopefully, though, someone will explain to both the unions and the politicians the basic economics of monopolies and how they slow competition and innovation. If the folks at the AFL-CIO would like a detailed explanation for why their letter actually goes against the best interests of the people they supposedly represent, they should give us a call.

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]]> a-little-economics-would-be-good-here http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20070824/170344 Mon, 6 Aug 2007 20:18:00 PDT Congressional Computer Crashes: Congressional Reps Too Confused To Vote Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070803/191959.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070803/191959.shtml The Raw Feed points us to the news that the Congressional computer that shows vote tallies in the House of Representatives went on the fritz Friday afternoon, leaving those poor Congressional Representatives with no large monitor to tell them how their colleagues were voting. Apparently, without having this information being prominently displayed, some were concerned that they wouldn't know if their votes were being accurately counted (they were), and therefore began debating whether voting should cease until the computer was fixed. Rep. Joe Barton pointed out that each side had their own computers with tallies, and if those tallies matched up, it seemed silly to delay the voting, but eventually the Representatives decided it was just too difficult and recessed while the machines were fixed. What ever did they do before computers?

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