The general point about the effects of special privileges for politicians is more important than the specifics of this particular incident, IMO.
I agree with the article, mostly. The DMCA is a bad law on many levels. This sort of “sampling” used to be considered fair use; the fact that it is not anymore is really a shame and undermines the very concept of fair use. When 90% of media becomes digital in the not-to-distant future, there will be no more fair use. There doesn’t need to be a special exemption for political campaigns—it has to be overhauled entirely for everyone.
Hmmm...makes me think of McCain-Feingold...ain’t that a bitch!
I seem to remember a political revolutionary who took over the House based on a list of reforms he planned to implement. Number one on the list of Gingrich's Contract With America was: "require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress".
How far the Republican's have strayed from what won them the Congress.
McCain has a point. There is a lot of difference between political messages and commercial messages or entertainment.
Copyright represents the government granting legal monopoly.
However, we need to examine the *purpose* of granting legal monopoly.
Should it be for the purposes of:
1) Protecting property rights.
2) Stimulating innovation and the market.
3) Preventing private use of ownership for profit.
4) Preventing private use of ownership for non-profit.
We there is general agreement that *some* protection is needed for new ideas, is it the purpose of the federal government to intervene in favor of and against some of its citizens?
An interesting parallel is found in, of all things, historical US mining law. The General Mining Act of 1872 was intended to encourage mining, yet prevent interloping.
In essence, it said that anyone could stake a mining claim just about anywhere, even on another person’s land. That ownership of land did not necessarily mean ownership of what was under the land.
However, if you struck a claim, then by law, you had to “improve” that claim to the tune of $500 every year. That means either physical improvement or profitable production. Otherwise, you would lose your claim.
Now imagine if this same concept was applied to the music, movie and book industries? Right now, they own enormous libraries of copyrighted material that they refuse to sell. They have staked a claim but are just sitting on it, and copyright law says they can. They don’t sell it, but the government won’t let anybody else sell it either.
Importantly, unless they retailed it in the first place, nobody would even know it existed, so it wouldn’t need copyright, government monopoly protection. So they retailed it once, but they don’t want the marketplace to have it again.
If they are worried that someone else may make a profit from it, why don’t *they* try to make a profit from it? Or if they just don’t want anyone to have it, is it right that they can be “Indian givers”?
A good example is the Disney movie, “Song of the South”, that Disney will now only sell on Laserdisk in Japan, but in no form in the US. Should they have government protection to *not* sell it in a market that wants it?
“It’s their property, they can do with it what they want” doesn’t really apply, because they have sold and still sell it, just not to Americans and in a format Americans want. So why should they have government protection to *not* sell something, and at the same time, not let anyone else sell it?
Granted, Mickey Mouse is hugely profitable to Disney, so they should have all sorts of government protection for their market product. It fits the bill, being their property, that they are selling, and even if someone else buys it, they should continue to pay Disney to license it.
Just like a profitable mine. In production, it is an important part of our economy. But once it runs out, let somebody else make a go of it or let it return to the public domain. No reason you should have a right to keep anyone else from using it.
OMFG!!!! Politicians with MORE rights than humans? Politicians are a subclass who must never even be allowed AS MANY rights as the rest of us, their employers and contractual and moral superiors.