I was reading a bit about this set of laws the **AA’s (RIAA, MPAA) are trying to push through during the lame-duck congress earlier, but forgot to do anything. Thanks Slashdot, for the reminder.
Per the Public Knowledge website, here’s my edited version of the letter I had faxed to my current representative:
Nov 20, 2004
Dear Representative,
As a Information Security Engineer at the University of Florida, I’m very familiar with many of the issues and concequences associated with Intellectual Property rights, and the importance of maintaining protection for those rights by their owners.
There is an implicit balance in how copyright works. Copyright holders receive a temporary monopoloy for their works so that those works can later be given to the public body of knowledge to benefit everyone.
I worry, however, that a recent bundle of legislation moves that balancing point far away from the average consumer and voting citizen, and squarely into the hands of copyright holders (mainly represented in this case by the major entertainment associations).
I’m asking that you oppose the omnibus “Intellectual Property Protection Act,” both as a whole and in its parts, and ask that you not allow it to come to the Senate floor for a vote.
I believe that intellectual property plays a critical role in the United States as a means of fostering both artistic expression and technological innovation. However, the IPPA, which is comprised of a number of individual bills, contains provisions that may harm my long-established rights as a legal user of content. Additionally, the bill may harm the development of new technologies.
There are a number of sections of the bill that particularly concern me:
Title II:
The Piracy Deterrence in Education Act (formerly H.R. 4077): This section establishes “offering for distribution” as basis for criminal copyright violation and “making available” for civil violation, regardless of whether there is any distribution or copying, let alone infringement. This bill drastically lowers the standards for what constitutes a criminal copyright violation. The standards are far too vague and could include as targets for prosecution material passively stored on computers or shared on networks.
This is akin to criminalizing the capacity to infringe, without actually caring if infringement occured. Can you imagine if this were applied to other legal precedents? It doesn’t seem appropriate in any other circumstances, and it doesn’t seem appropriate in these.
The ART Act (formerly S. 1932): This is a bill that prohibits the unauthorized use of a video camera in a movie theatre. While I do not support movie bootlegging, I believe that under some limited circumstances the public needs the fair use protections granted under traditional copyright law, which this bill would eliminate.
The Family Movie Act (formerly H.R. 4586): This bill was originally intended to protect the my right to use technology to skip-over and mute parts of a movie that my family may find objectionable–a proposition which I fully support. Unfortunately, the broadcasting industry and Hollywood added a section to take away my right of skipping over ads in DVDs and recorded broadcasts with a TiVo like device.
It does not seem appropriate to have Congress mandate that I must be subjected to various advertisements in content that I have purchased. I’m quite sure content creators can price their products appropriately without forcing audiences to watch advertisements. How would you like to be denied access to a movie theater after buying a ticket because you arrived after the ads started and you had to watch all the advertisements before viewing the rest of the movie? This is exactly what this bill does to DVDs.
Title III:
The PIRATE Act (formerly S. 2237): This bill would allow the Justice Department to file civil suits against copyright infringers. Especially with the record profits that the media industry is making, it doesn’t seem appropriate that I as a tax payer should have to fund a corporation’s private right of action. The Justice Department has even said it did not want this authority.
There is too much in “The Intellectual Property Protection Act” that harms market innovation and my rights as a consumer. For the reasons above, I respectfully ask that you oppose H.R. 2391.
Sincerely,
Jordan Wiens
Hooray! Not quite as insane as the stuff I’d write but it’s still good. Now if only about 200 million more people did that…
Left by Rehmeyer on November 20th, 2004
You have a typo in the second sentence. Oops.
Left by Matt on November 27th, 2004
“There is an implicit balance in how copyright works”? What’s wrong with that? (or did you already change it, Jordan?)
Left by John B on November 27th, 2004
I think he meant ‘monopoloy’ in the third sentence.
Yeah; hopefully that just means they’ll realize it wasn’t (totally) a formmail generated faxand take it seriously. Or they’ll vertical-file it because I’m obviously not too much of a professional if I can’t use spell check.
Left by Jordan on November 27th, 2004
Yeah, third sentence. Sorry, I can’t count. The content of the letter is right on. I would have avoided using the phrase “intellectual property,” since I consider it a propaganda term and instead referred to “copyrights and patents.”
Left by Matt on November 27th, 2004
Hmm, that’s a good point. Much like calling copyright infringment ‘piracy’. I’ll have to try to make that change in my vocab.
Left by Jordan on November 28th, 2004