(Forwarded from CNI Copyright list)
-------- Original Message --------
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 10:23:26 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jon Noring <address@hidden>
"Cumbow, Robert" <address@hidden> wrote:
This doesn't mean I'm in favor of indefinite term extensions,
or of the copy protection anti-circumvention provisions of
the DMCA. It means that, if copyright law, in letter and in
application, has become overreaching in recent years, those
of us in the copyright community should work together to
make good law and good public policy, not throw out the
baby with the bath by taking seriously the dizzy-eyed claims
of muddled and uninformed thinkers who simplistically
suggest that copyright law is inherently oppressive.
The reality is that there is huge lobbying from the big
media conglomerates (the "Copymonopolists") to make
copyright law into what it was never intended to be. Such as
effectively perpetual copyright terms, criminalizing all
levels of copyright infringement to the level now reserved
for major drug dealers, murderers, and organized crime,
eliminating Fair Use, eliminating the right of owners of
copyrighted works to copy them for personal use and for
safekeeping, requiring all electronics have the proper
hardware locks and surveillancesystems, giving the
copymonopolists private police and surveillance powers to
disrupt networks, etc., etc.
These big media conglomerates have zero interest in working
with the copyright community, such as that represented on
CNI-Copyright. They'll let us keep on with our academic
prattle, sipping cappucino all the while, while they'll go
out and throw hundreds of millions of dollars (and they have
already) in lobbying Congress for the oppressive laws of
which they have nightly wet dreams.
The only thing which will work to keep them in check is a
NRA-like organization which unites consumers of electronic
and digital services and products. Such an in-your-face,
"don't mess with us or you'll really regret it" organization
with 5 million (voting) members and a substantial lobbying
budget will put a halt to the frenzy of oppressive
intellectual property-related laws (mostly dealing in the
digital/electronic domain) now in the works.
Organizations now out there to serve the public interest in
matters of copyright and privacy in the digital age, such as
EFF, are essentially ineffective because they have not tried
to mobilize the very large number of people out there who
are clearly worried about our digital future (and I figure
in the U.S. alone there are several million of us.) Well
intentioned as they are, organizations like EFF are spitting
into the wind rather than creating their own gale. I guess
they are sipping too much cappucino, believing being nice
and trying to discuss things rationally they will ultimately
prevail. This is naivety of the first order.
No, this is a war, and the sooner we come to realize that,
the sooner we can become more effective stemming the tide of
the copymonopolists, and return copyright to its proper
place and balance in our society.
Jon Noring
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