Declan McCullagh of C|Net News examines the agendas recently presented by the two parties.

He finds the omissions interesting:

Net neutrality became one the hottest political flashpoints in the last year. But in what might seem to be an odd omission, both Republicans and Democrats studiously ignored it this week when touting their technology agendas for 2007.

Also absent from the list of congressional priorities were controversial topics like social-network restrictions, Internet surveillance, data retention, spyware, and laws aimed at regulating Google and its competitors when doing business in China.

Continue reading Congressional High Tech Agendas - Continued . . .

posted by James DeLong @ 11:57 AM | Congress

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Rick Boucher is at it again. A few years ago he gave us the Music Online Choice Act (MOCA), a bill that would have imposed compulsory licensing on the digital music market because it was so obvious that studios were going to dominate that market; hey, notice all the download services are independent of studios, and iTunes even has the market power to dictate retail price? Now he is back and has joined with John Doolittle to introduce the FAIR USE Act of 2007. This is Boucher's latest iteration of his legislation to gut the DMCA, which he first introduced before the DMCA became law almost 10 years ago. This bill is at best unnecessary and at worst dangerous. Absolutely no part of the bill respects the rights of creators to designate through the market which rights will convey with their creations.

Continue reading Boucher and Doolittle, What Do You Have Against Creators? . . .

posted by Patrick Ross @ 5:21 PM | Access: Commons, Fair Use, Orphan Works, Public Domain , Congress , Content Controls , DMCA , DRM , Free Culture Movement , Legislation , Markets: Business, Investment & Innovation

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The Property Rights Alliance Hill Working Group will meet on Thursday, February 8th, from 11am-12 noon, in 121 Cannon House Office Building. Topics:

Eminent Domain Reform: Can the Senate get the job done?
Updates on compulsory licensing issues in Thailand
Northern Europe’s love of free music continues
How “neutral” will the network get?
Just how much land does the US Government own?

If you have an agenda item, please contact Scott LaGanga at at slaganga@atr.org or 202-390-6978.
All encouraged to bring handouts.
The session is off the record.

posted by James DeLong @ 2:43 PM | Big Tent , Congress , Physical Property

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Bartlett Cleland (director of the Institute for Policy Innovation Center for Technology Freedom) in The Hill:

property rights: Congress must be skeptical of efforts to define property rights as antithetical to consumers’ interests. In fact, copyright contributes mightily to the incentive to create — knowing that one can profit from talents, intelligence or creativity. We cannot allow others to steal with impunity. Just the theft of movies costs our economy $20.5 billion a year, more than 141,000 jobs annually and $837 million in lost tax revenue a year. Imagine adding in all the copyrighted industries.

posted by James DeLong @ 11:48 AM | Congress

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Subcommiteee assignments for House Judiciary are now posted. For Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, which "shall have jurisdiction over . . . copyright, patent and trademark law, information technology, administration of U.S. Courts, Federal Rules of Evidence, Civil and Appellate Procedure, judicial ethics, other appropriate matters as referred to by the Chairman, and relevant oversight," the members are:

Berman (D) - California, 28th - (Chairman)
Conyers Jr. (D) - Michigan, 1th
Boucher (D) - Virginia, 9th
Meehan (D) - Massachusetts, 5th
Wexler (D) - Florida, 19th
Watt (D) - North Carolina, 12th
Jackson Lee (D) - Texas, 18th
Cohen (D) - Tennessee, 9th
Johnson (D) - Georgia, 4th
Sherman (D) - California, 27
Weiner (D) - New York, 9th
Schiff(D) California, 29th

Coble (R) - North Carolina, 6th (Ranking Member)
Feeney(R) - Florida, 24th
Sensenbrenner Jr.(R) - Wisconsin, 5th
Gallegly (R) - California, 24th
Goodlatte (R) - Virginia, 6th
Chabot (R) - Ohio, 1st
Cannon (R) - Utah, 3rd
Keller (R) - Florida, 8th
Issa (R) - California, 49th
Pence (R) - Indiana, 6th

posted by James DeLong @ 8:43 AM | Congress

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PFF just released its Tech Agenda 2007 -- "[ten] recommendations designed to assist policy makers in Congress, the agencies and the states in addressing . . . prominent policy challenges":

1. Renew fundamental reforms of communications regulations.
2. Leave network neutrality concerns to the market and antitrust.
3. Leave content business models and fair use to the market.
4. When addressing patents, take a first-principles approach to property and innovation.
5. Enact meaningful reform of archaic media ownerships laws and regulations that hinder media marketplace experimentation.
6. Pursue greater First Amendment parity among modern media providers by leveling the playing field in the direction of greater freedom for all operators / platforms.
7. Subject data security and privacy proposals to careful benefit-cost analysis, including full examination of consumer benefits from services and technologies affected by these proposals.
8. Promote pro-competitive, non-regulatory internet governance.
9. Avoid open-ended, intrusive data retention mandates.
10. Promote more efficient taxation of telecom services and Internet sales.

Each is accompanied by a one-para elaboration. The IP section:

3. Leave content business models and fair use to the market.

Congress should resist the urge to pass laws that interfere with markets for copyrighted goods. To create new content distribution business models, producers often use digital rights management technology to package or mark digital goods to exclude free riders, just as locks on doors are the “front line” in keeping out burglars. Over time, competition and consumer demand will shape what form any restrictions take. Creators have a strong incentive to circulate their work to a broad audience. Fair use has long been a “safety valve” in copyright, allowing the audience for a copyrighted work to copy, usually in part, when negotiating with the copyright owner would be impracticable. As technology reduces transaction costs, the scope of this area in which seeking permission is impractical shrinks, and the scope of fair use should shrink with it. Legislators should avoid regulations of this market based on technologies of the moment, or of the past.

4. When addressing patents, take a first-principles approach to property and innovation.

When examining reform of the U.S. patent system, Congress should remember that the system already works well for a significant number of companies. Therefore, the first rule of patent reform should be to do no harm, and focus on first principles of patents, namely the incentive to innovate and the protection of those innovations for a limited time. Modest litigation reform and better tools for patent examiners can significantly reduce patent conflicts without undermining the system. Congress should first do no harm.

posted by James DeLong @ 12:00 PM | Congress

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Now available - the transcript of PFF's Oct. 20 program on Copyright 'Modernization: What Is the Agenda on Capitol Hll?

Of course, a significant event has supervened since Oct. 20, so perhaps we should have given the panelists a chance to revise and extend their thoughts. But we didn't.

posted by James DeLong @ 11:58 AM | Congress

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