Recent Posts from Techdirt
-
When Judging Antitrust Claims Against Google, Look At Lock-In, Not Network Effects
Bill Snyder has an article calling Google "Microsoft's evil twin" because if
-
Disgruntled SF City Tech Worker Takes Over City's Computer Network
Every few years or so, we see a story about some disgruntled
-
Bad Ideas: Stealing Products That Can Be Tracked Wirelessly
Slashdot points us to the amusing story of technology "solving" a theft
-
Maybe Patent Trolls Wouldn't Be So Hated If We Called Them Patent Elves
I'm not a huge fan of the term "patent troll" which I
-
While We're Making Suggestions To The AP, How About Not Disappearing The News?
In the wake of the ridiculous dustup between bloggers and the AP,
Sponsored by:
Published on Techdirt at 1:20 AM
Presidential Candidates Asked If They've Stopped Beating Their Wives With Weak Copyright Laws
Patrick Ross apparently has no shame. For years, at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, he presented ridiculous statement after ridiculous statement about intellectual property. There was the one about how fair use harmed innovation. Then there's my personal favorite, where he argued that the DMCA shouldn't be changed because markets shouldn't be regulated -- ignoring the key point that the DMCA, itself, was a regulation that was tremendously distorting the market. After attacking me for suggesting that his viewpoints were influenced by the fact that he was paid to promote the positions of the entertainment industry (when I hadn't even suggested that), Ross went on to make it official that he was shilling for the entertainment industry, by creating a super-lobbying group that represented all the different big copyright groups under one umbrella: The Copyright Alliance, made up of the MPAA, the RIAA, the BSA, the ESA and others.
Ross' latest stunt is to demand that all presidential candidates answer his survey of stunningly loaded questions about copyright. The questions are all of the "and have you stopped beating your wife?" variety -- even causing the reporters attending Ross's press conference to make fun of the questions as being ridiculously leading. Of course, the questions are publically available (pdf) for anyone to view. Let's go through them one by one in order to help the presidential candidates step around the incredibly loaded nature of the questions to do a better job with them. Hopefully, Ross won't accuse us of a copyright violation in reposting the questions...
Published on Techdirt at 1:20 AM
