Posted on 06/05/2006 7:41:20 PM PDT by thebaron512
This will be a busy week in the House -- Congress goes into summer recess Friday, but not before considering the Section 115 Reform Act of 2006 (SIRA). Never heard of SIRA? That’s the way Big Copyright and their lackey’s want it, and it's bad news for you.
Simply put, SIRA fundamentally redefines copyright and fair use in the digital world. It would require all incidental copies of music to be licensed separately from the originating copy. Even copies of songs that are cached in your computer's memory or buffered over a network would need yet another license. Once again, Big Copyright is looking for a way to double-dip into your wallet, extracting payment for the same content at multiple levels.
Today, so-called "incidental" copies don't need to be licensed; they're made in the process of doing *other* things, like listening to your MP3 library or plugging into a Net radio station. If you paid for the MP3 and the radio station is up-to-date with its bookkeeping, nobody should have to pay again, right? Not if SIRA becomes law. Out of the blue, copyright holders would have created an entire new market to charge for -- and sue over. Good for them. Bad for us.
Don't let Big Copyright legalize double dipping. Fight SIRA today.
The House is going into recess for the summer at the end of this week, so you have a unique opportunity to kill this legislation. If we can stall SIRA now it would effectively kill it for the reminder of the year, giving us more time to prepare an offensive.
Please call the Members of the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property and voice your opposition to this legislation.
Republicans:
Honorable Lamar S. Smith 2184 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-4236
Honorable Henry J. Hyde 2110 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-4561
Honorable Elton Gallegly 2427 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515-0523 (202) 225-5811
Honorable Bob Goodlatte 2240 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-5431
Honorable William L. Jenkins 1207 Longworth Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-6356
Honorable Spencer Bachus 442 Cannon House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 202 225-4921
Hon. Robert Inglis 330 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-6030
Honorable Ric Keller 419 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-2176
Hon. Darrell Issa 211 Cannon House Office Bldg. Washington, DC 20515
Honorable Chris Cannon 2436 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-7751
Honorable Mike Pence 426 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-3021
Honorable J. Randy Forbes 307 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-6365
Democrats:
Honorable Howard L. Berman 2221 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 (202) 225-4695
Honorable John Conyers, Jr. 2426 Rayburn Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-5126
Honorable Rick Boucher 2187 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-3861
Honorable Zoe Lofgren 102 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-3072
Honorable Maxine Waters 2344 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-2201
Honorable Martin T. Meehan 2229 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-3411
Honorable Robert Wexler 213 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-3001
Honorable Anthony Weiner 1122 Longworth House Office Building Washington DC 20515 (202) 225-6616
Honorable Adam Schiff 326 Cannon House Office Building Washington D.C. 20515 (202) 225-4176
Honorable Linda T. Sanchez 1007 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-6676
I thought all the money went to the artists instead of the politicians.
In looking over this site I am not liking what I see. They want to use government to restrict compensation of copyrighted material and that is unacceptable. If someone owns the copyright then they should be paid for it. Why should some PAC have the right to determine what is fair compensation?
ugh. How do you enforce that?
Wow - this guy has obviously never had something ripped off under "fair use".
I'm guessing if he did, he'd be saying something different...
Let 'em try.
Because intellectual property is not a natural right. It is a privilege created by government edict.
The natural right to property depends solely and completely upon the fact that property is subject to rivalrous consumption, where use of the property by one person prevents the use of the same property by others. Since that necessary condition does not hold for "intellectual property," it is not a natural right.
There is a perfect analogy betweeen "intellectual property" and the legal distinction between nobles and commoners that prevailed throughout most of the world until recent centuries.
Put a root kit on your computer? OK Sony!
This seems right to me. The creators of IP need to be protected from infringement. Too bad that the leaches who don't want to pay will cry havoc. Let them get a job and pay for what they want to have.
Neither has anybody else. If it's fair use it's not a ripoff (by definition).
If this one doesn't pass now, it will pass as a midnight rider to some bill that even Congress doesn't bother reading.
Let's accept that this will pass, in some form at some time. Let's focus our efforts on better, stealthier technology for passing contraband over the Internet.
I already enough crap in my roots... I'm gonna be busy this week
Clinton...hands down the worst Bill I've ever heard of.
As a hard-core libertarian, I'm sensitive to your arguments.
OTOH, as an entrepreneur (with a patent) I also understand that without protection for a certain period of time, it just doesn't make economic sense to spend time, money and effort to develop a new way of doing things if there is no possibility of turning that effort into money.
Libertarian economists (Rothbard comes to mind) treat new techniques as "recipes" which, once part of the culture, can be treated as "nature", a source of value that only needs to be exploited, but is not "capital".
It's obvious, though, that as a life-long academic, he never had to make an economic decision whether to invest his time in creating a NEW recipe or simply taking his master's pay.
Without some sort of patent protection, innovation in the US would stop tomorrow.
BS. IP is one of the foundations of our economic system. When government steps in and assigns a value then you can kiss innovation and any incentive to create good bye. If I create music, design software, develop a chemical compound, write a book then it belongs to me and I get to charge for its usage. That's not just government, it is the will of the people who created said item.
What is socialistic here? The person wanting to be paid for their IP or the thought that double dipping isn't fair?
Government control of the market doesn't seem a tad socialistic to you? Copyright protection is one thing. This is something entirely ELSE.
Just because something has net positive utility does not make it rightful. The idea that utility (need) creates a right is the core conceit of socialism.
Two words:
use
net!
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