Rep. Boucher Outlines 'Fair Use' Fight

A reader writes "AtNewYork.com is reporting: U.S. Congressman Rick Boucher, moving to strengthen "fair use" provisions under federal copyright law, said he is introducing a bill that would essentially restrict the record industry from selling copy-protected CDs."

Re:Contact info for Rick Boucher?

[hether]

http://www.house.gov/boucher/ [house.gov] is his web site
and [e-mail] [mailto] is his email address.

More Legal Issues?

[Caradoc]

I don't think any new laws are going to fix any of the problems. Look at what's going on with Microsoft lately... Slashdot published a story about the meeting scheduled between the Phoenix Linux Users Group and the Maricopa County CIO to talk about the purchasing guidelines and potential for Open Source, but it looks like Maricopa County won't be "disbarring" Microsoft as a supplier, despite the clear legality of doing so after Microsoft's lost legal battles on the "monopoly" front.

After about two hours (8:30AM to 10:30AM) I left the meeting with a much better feeling about my local County government - at least in the IT/IS groups.

Linden Thatcher, the CIO for Maricopa County, struck me as quite literate in the issues that were raised.

About 5% of the County IT/IS budget goes to Microsoft products, a vast majority of those being the 12,000 desktops they support. According to the statements Mr. Thatcher made, most of their "server-side" applications run on a mix of HP-UX and System V, with some apps running on Websphere.

There are currently a couple of internal projects running Linux/Apache to provide document publishing.

Mr. Thatcher has read "Ender's Game," and met Orson Scott Card (thank goodness we've got SOMEONE in the hierarchy who is not only literate, but READS!)

The Phoenix Linux Users Group people who showed up were very polite, and there was only one person in the crowd who seemed to be almost violently "anti-Microsoft."

Good meeting. But I still don't have any hopes that new laws are going to fix any of these problems.

Re:Man.....

[Takeel]

The surprising thing is that Boucher is from one of the less technologically inclined corners of Virginia (i.e. not NOVA and not near Jefferson Labs...).

I wonder if some Slashdotters realize just *how* technologically uninclined Rep. Boucher's district is.

The "Fightin' Ninth's" major issues include assistance for tobacco farmers, improving transportation (only one major highway runs to the district), and getting *any* sort of information technology industry to locate in the area. A large portion of Virginia's ninth Congressional district is virtually impoverished, with unemployment rates in some areas being as high as *13 percent*. The region receives very little attention from Virginia's state government, being overshadowed by the fast-paced, high-tech, (incredibly fortunate) Northern Virginia/Washington DC area.

Geographically, the ninth Congressional district in Virginia stretches from the western edge of Roanoke county to the western-most area of Virginia, commonly referred to as "Southwestern Virginia." Major industries include trucking, coal mining, farming, and service businesses.

So, keeping this in mind, it truly is a considerable wonder that Rep. Boucher is interested in these issues.

Re:Why does govt set the royalties?

[Silverhammer]

Here's why [cornell.edu].

Basically, if the record companies were not subject to compulsory licensing, they could pick and choose which stations may play their music. They would control radio broadcasting outright (rather than through mergers and payola).

With compulsory licensing, any station can play any music, so long as they comply with their side of the license.

The current problem is in updating the license to handle the new reality of back-room Internet broadcasters...

Re:Good step, but ultimately...

[Chris Burke]

That's a very good point. Fair use is just part of the bargain that is copyright law, which also isn't a right. It's a deal between content authors (or the megacorps that own them) and the people. But it's a deal that is ultimately supposed to benefit the people, and only them. The benefit to the authors is only in the context that making money off content in theory causes more content to be produced, which is good for the people.

RIAA/MPAA donations

[LordNimon]

Does anyone know where I can learn how much money my elected representatives have received from the RIAA, MPAA, and other pro-DMCA companies? I'd like to write letters to my Congressmen asking them to support Boucher's bill, but I want to include this financial information to let them know that I know.

Congressman Boucher's statement on Fair Use

[Phoenix-kun]

We need to support this man!

You can find his statement on Fair Use here [house.gov]

And his official web site can be found here [house.gov]

Anyone actually check this congressman out?

[BrookHarty]

Rick Boucher [house.gov] - Virginia-9th, Democrat

Committess
* Committee on Energy and Commerce
* Committee on the Judiciary

Sub-committees
* Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property (Judiciary)
* Energy and Air Quality (Energy and Commerce)
* Telecommunications and the Internet (Energy and Commerce)

I never even heard of the NetCaucus [netcaucus.org] but he seems to be majorly involved with Internet and Government. Wonder who else is belongs to this caucus and "Gets It"...

Re:RIAA/MPAA donations

[mcfiddish]

http://www.opensecrets.org/

Re:unfair restriction

[DustMagnet]

Thomas Jefferson actually wrote [uchicago.edu] that it would be wrong if people treated ideas as property. So the "original intention of intellectual property laws" seems sort of an oxymoron, but then terms like piracy and theft don't really make much sence either. I think pirates used to kill people.

Re:RIAA/MPAA donations

[SiliconEntity]

A great resource for finding donors is www.opensecrets.org [opensecrets.org]. You can find out who gave the most money to Sen. Hollings over the past 5 years [opensecrets.org] (surprise - Disney is 16th!), or which members of Congress received the most from the tv/movies/music industries [opensecrets.org] (Howard Berman, D-CA is number one), and lots of other goodies like this. It's an amazing collection of information.

Re:Rights

[Sangui5]

I've always viewed it like this: when you get media, there is a "basic" license intrinsically and inseparably tied to that media. The basic license grants you certain rights, including but not necessarily limited to:

1. the right to use
2. the right to resell/lend
3. the right to backup
4. the right to "space-shift" (legalese for changing the format)

The official view of the courts is that if the transaction has the quality of a sale, then it isn't licensing at all (they've also pretty much said that everything that's happened in any consumer store thusfar has had the quality of a sale). Thus, if it "feels" like a sale, then you have, if nothing else, the right of resale, lending, and space shifting (these rights have all been ruled on).

The courts have not specifically ruled on any of the other rights *I* feel you have (that I know of), but (so far as I know) a pertinent case hasn't come up. It would seem pretty silly that you didn't intrinsically have the right to listen to a CD you've bought, though. And I'm also pretty sure that copying for archival purposes is protected by copyright law as well. So, 2 of my 4 are official, one is common sense, and, well, look # 4 up.

In any case, by the doctorine of first sale, the RIAA can't restrict by legal means the used CD market. Nothing has been said about technological means, though, and it sounds like Rep. Boucher wants to restrict the use of technology to limit such things.

Interesting note, but the doctorine of first sale stems from a case where a book publisher included a "EULA" in the front of their books, forbidding their sale on the secondary market. The court ruled that the interest of the publisher in that particular copy of a protected work ended after they sold it the first time, and that they couldn't limit what happened to it afterwards. So, by some stretch, there is precident for EULA's not having legal force.

Not wasting your vote

[dada21]

No. A vote for a Democrat or a Republican is a wasted vote. Why?

You know that a Democrat or a Republican will only vote for a few things you want, and a bunch of things that you don't want. They never follow a strict regiment of careful voting.

When you vote for a Libertarian, you are saying "I WANT LESS GOVERNMENT." "I WANT LESS TAXES." "I WANT MORE RIGHTS, MORE PRIVACY, AND MORE RESPONSIBILITY."

Libertarians swing votes in local elections, even at the state level (the governor's race in Illinois is highly contested, and the Libertarian may swing that vote). Our vote counts because it scares the bejesus out of the party who lost, as well as the party who won. The vote says there are people out there who want smaller government. With time, and with more voters, it'll make both parties stand up and realize that big government will help them lose elections.

Last year I met an average of 30 people a week who say "I won't vote Libertarian because its a wasted vote." I started a mailing list of these people. I also asked them to get their friends on the mailing list who said the same thing. In less than 9 months, we're 6000 strong. That's just people who were afraid to vote Libertarian because they were afraid of wasting their vote. Now, we're finding that we're much stronger together than we ever were apart.
I recommend the same for you. Afraid of wasting your vote? Get together at the local libertarian meetings. Bring your friends. You'll see its not a wasted vote.

Voting for the status quo is a wasted vote. Both only make government bigger, more intrusive, and cater to big business. Even the greens do that! Only one party wants to take the axe to government spending and growth.

Before you fully support Boucher...

[MagPulse]

you should know he supported the DMCA in 1998.

"...I am pleased to rise today in support of the passage of H.R. 2281, which will extend new protections against the theft of their works to copyright owners."

To see the full text of his DMCA speech:

1. Click here [loc.gov]
2. Click on the link for #14
3. Do a browser search for "boucher", click on the link

SUPPORT BOUCHER

[Anonymous Coward]

If you support Rep. Boucher's ideas, you should help support his re-election campaign. http://www.boucherforcongress.com/ He's running against this loser carpetbagger Jay Katzen that doesn't even live in that freakin congressional district. Katzen ran for Lt. Governor last year, and I can assure you that his ideas are the absolute exact opposite of Rick Boucher's.

What a guy...

[keller999]

Makes me want to switch to Democrat...almost... =) Check out a letter that he wrote to the RIAA... http://www.house.gov/boucher/docs/riaaletter.htm

Re:So get off your @SS

[ctar]

Also Agreed! I recommend Congress Watch [citizen.org] at citizen.org. They have no shame in their progressive bias', but its a great resource for finding your representatives, and seeing summaries of current legislation, and voting history.

Re:Hooray for Virginia Democrats

[rodgerd]

It was not a "damn fine compromise" with anyone. Tipper Gore, like Al's fromer running mate Joe Lieberman, is an aggresive campaigner for censorship and has been since the early eighties. Her campaign against musicians mirrored the classic bluestocking campaigns against movies in the twenties and thirties, and comics in the fifties, hoping to obtain more censorship through sdaring the industry than could possibly be obtained through legal means.

Re:yahoo

[cphirman]

It may or may not be a First Amendment issue, but the music companies are in violation of the Fair Use Act by using technologies that don't allow consumers to make copies for personal use.