Tech Company Lobbying Group Explains The Importance Of Letting Countries Make Their Own Policy Decisions On Copyright

from the good-for-them dept

Mon, Feb 22nd 2010 7:19pm — Mike Masnick

The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which represents a variety of big tech companies, including Microsoft, Google, eBay, Oracle and others, has come on strong lately as a defender against the ridiculous and unnecessary expansion of overly aggressive copyright law. This is good news -- seeing as some of the companies it represents haven't always seemed so enlightened on the subject. I was lucky to meet with some CCIA folks about a month ago, and they definitely seemed to recognize that a more draconian copyright policy actually does much more harm than good to the companies whose interests they represent. You may recall that it was the CCIA, a few months back, that put out the marvelous report that used the same exact methodology that the big pro-copyright lobbyists have used to claim the "size" of the economic impact on copyright, to point out that the economic impact of fair use trumps that by a wide margin.

So it's great -- if not surprising -- to see that the CCIA's filing to the USTR for the Special 301 report (pdf) actually matches much of my own filing, though from a more legalistic perspective (and focuses on Canada). The key points are the same, however: the Constitutional basis for copyright has never been that "more is better," but that we should be seeking the most effective ways to "promote the progress." Second, it notes that countries should be free to make their own policy decisions on copyright law, rather than being pressured into them by the US. It further notes that the USTR Special 301 process shouldn't be focused on legislative and policy issues, but merely enforcement of the law. Unfortunately, it's gotten far away from that.

There were a ton of great filings to the USTR that I've seen already, and hopefully the USTR really does pay attention to those beyond the usual crew of entertainment industry and pharmaceutical industry lobbyists, to recognize that this issue is a lot more complex than it has, at times, been treated in the past. Still, it's great to see a group like CCIA add its important voice to the discussion, too.

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Filed Under: canada, copyright, special 301, ustr
Companies: ccia

8 Comments

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Hephaestus (profile), 22 Feb 2010 @ 9:04pm

Slowly but surely the monster will awaken ....
Slowly a monster stirred and opened its multitude of eyes, each eye had its own name AMD, Aventure Comm, ebay, fujitsu, google, Microsoft, oracle, redhat, t-mobile, yahoo. Then the monsters and beasts laying beside it openned their eyes ... and glared at the small things chanting ACTA, ACTA, ACTA! With one swipe of a talon the small things were squashed.
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- Anonymous Coward, 22 Feb 2010 @ 9:34pm
  
  Re: Slowly but surely the monster will awaken ....
  While I do believe one day oppressive nonsense like IP will be substantially alleviated, I still don't see it happening any time soon. Social progress is inevitable but it often happens on a time scale of hundreds of years.
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Antony Watts (profile), 23 Feb 2010 @ 12:13am

World copyright
Seems to me that copyright arguments are barking up the wrong tree. Copyright to day is micro-managed (...you can only release this for internet streaming on the 21st of March at 12.30am, in 640x480 resolution...etc). And that geo-location which blocks video and TV on national boarders should be the target of our discussions.

The problem you see is simple. The internet is global and copyrights have to be too.
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someone who actually knows what he's talking about, 23 Feb 2010 @ 2:58am

geist's post...
i like how you posted about geist's post... only to then post again what his source said. did you even read geist's post the other day before posting about it?
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 23 Feb 2010 @ 4:09am
  
  Re: geist's post...
  i like how you posted about geist's post... only to then post again what his source said. did you even read geist's post the other day before posting about it?
  
  I've read this sentence six times and I still have no idea what you're trying to say. Nothing in this post was about Michael Geist or any of his posts. What, specifically, are you referring to?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2010 @ 5:17am

Hmmm, allowing a sovereign nation to make decisions all by themselves, what a novel idea.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2010 @ 12:17pm

"countries should be free to make their own policy decisions on copyright law"

Wait. They are not?!

It's a rare moment when I feel proud my country told the US to shove it up their arses.
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- Hate Greedy Companies, 23 Feb 2010 @ 3:17pm
  
  Re:
  The scary part is that since CCIA,RIAA and the rest of the dogs get everything they want here in the USA, why do they want other countries making their own laws?
  Unless they are able to talk some small third world country into torturing software pirates.
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