Commentary by moderator:
Remember the Green Paper (and then White Paper) on copyright put out
by the Clinton Administration? They proposed making it a criminal act
to do any kind of distribution of copyrighted material on your own
(such as emailing a copy of something to a friend) and perhaps even
storing material on your own system!
Despite several expert analyses criticizing parts of the proposal (some
of which you can see on the current-issues page on our Web) a new bill
in Congress parrots its worst aspects. For instance, it contains a
passage against any "device or product" whose "primary purpose or
effect" is to circumvent copyright. What computer product could
escape persecution under that broad a ban?
A letter protesting the bill follows.
I'm no John Perry Barlow--I believe in people getting paid for their
literary labors (and well I should, since I work for a publisher).
But the framers of this bill are ignoring basic technical issues
(sound familiar?). And up to now, copyright has always been balanced
against the legitimate needs of researchers and teachers.
As usual, a move in this direction will have far-reaching
international repercussions. The countries of the world are trying to
come together (such as in GATT) concerning intellectual property, and
the model set by the U.S. will be important.
Andy
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February 12, 1996
The Honorable Henry J. Hyde
Chairman, House Committee on the Judiciary
U.S. House of Representatives
2110 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-1306
The Honorable Carlos J. Moorhead
Chairman, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property
U.S. House of Representatives
2346 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-0527
Dear Mr. Chairmen:
The undersigned companies and associations represent the full spectrum of
the information technology industry -- from hardware to software, from
information services to Internet access providers and end users, and from
local to long distance communications carriers. We fully support the need
to protect the rights of copyright owners, particularly since intellectual
property protection is a bedrock of the information technology industry. We
also support the long- standing tradition of copyright law which has sought
to balance the rights and obligations of copyright owners with those of
information publishers, distributors, and users.
We are writing today to express concern with H.R. 2441, the "NII Copyright
Protection Act of 1995." We specifically ask the Committee to consider more
fully the impact of expanding the distribution rights to include
"transmit." As providers and users of various network access and
communications services, we must be protected from an inappropriate and
excessive risk of liability. In these roles, we do not initiate or control
the transmission of protected works. We ask that the hearing record remain
open, that more hearings be scheduled, and that the views of all parties
interested in the success of the Internet on both domestic and global
scales be heard.
The changes in copyright law proposed in H.R. 2441 and the identical Senate
version, S. 1284, are significant in that they expand the exclusive rights
granted copyright owners, while placing legal burdens upon information
service providers who transmit communications for content providers. This
could unwittingly and abruptly halt the development of the Internet, the
National Information Infrastructure (NII), and the Global Information
Infrastructure (GII).
Finally, because many representatives of the undersigned organizations were
not part of the congressional legislative drafting process for H.R. 2441,
we ask that, together with other interested persons, we be invited to
participate actively in a discussion process designed to address these
concerns. We look forward to supporting the pending legislation when these
issues are resolved in a balanced manner.
Sincerely,
Amdahl Corporation
America Online
Ameritech
AT&T
Bell Atlantic
BellSouth Corporation
Broadcast Productions Group
CompuServe Incorporated
Computer & Communications Industry Association
Commercial Internet eXchange Association
Dun & Bradstreet, Inc.
Electronic Messaging Association
Information Technologies Association of America
ManyMedia
MCI Communications Corporation
MultiMedia Telecommunications Association
National Retail Federation
Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc.
Prodigy Services Company
SNET
SBC Communications Inc.
Spyglass, Inc.
The Internet Company
Pacific Telesis Group
U S WEST
cc: Members of the House Committee on the Judiciary
Alan F. Coffey, Jr.
Julian Epstein
Thomas E. Mooney
Mitchell Glazier
Betty Wheeler
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Sender: "David H. Rothman" <•••@••.•••>
COPYRIGHT CZAR TO LAW PROF: I'LL RIP YOUR THROAT OUT
Bruce Lehman, Bill Clinton's intellectual property czar, threatened to
rip the throat out of James Boyle, an uppity professor at American
University, who actually had the nerve to criticize Lehman in a
newspaper article. At another point the Czar merely proposed to chase
his critic to "the ends of the earth" and stop him from winning
tenure. This Nixon-level affection for the Constitution is in
character. Lehman presided over the writing of the White Paper on
intellectual property; and scads of alert Netfolk and law professors
consider the paper to be a threat to the First Amendment.
Unfortunately the bizarreness is no April Fools' joke. If only the
White Paper were. It's D.C. justificaiton for anti-Net laws favoring
copyright holders. For more see
http://www.clark.net/pub/rothman/telhome.html.
<I-told-you-so mode>In the Orwell chapter of my book NetWorld! I warn how
Lehman *still* seems to be working for the copyright holders he represented
at a D.C. law firm before becoming Clinton's IP czar. What's more, I tell of
past political donations from Lehman and other members of the copyright
lobby. Carnegie-style public libraries on the Net would be among our best
protections against an Orwellian scenario. But to the Hill and White House,
political considerations so far have come come first. I hope members of this
list will spread the news about Washington's contempt for our Net and the
public library system.</itysm>
Let me add that like Andy, I'm fervently *pro*-copyright and want fair
compensation for writers and publishers. Ironically Washington may actually
be playing into the hands of John Perry Barlow and friends--by making
copyright so unworkable that we eventually junk it entirely.
-David Rothman
http://www.clark.net/pub/rothman/networld.html
703.370.6540
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Posted by Andrew Oram - •••@••.••• - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR)
Cyber-Rights: http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/
ftp://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/Library/
CyberJournal: (WWW or FTP) --> ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore
Materials may be reposted in their _entirety_ for non-commercial use.
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