Revolving Door: Administration's ACTA Defender Jumps Ship To US Chamber Of Commerce

from the lobbyists-in-and-out dept

Wed, Jul 7th 2010 8:32pm — Mike Masnick

You may remember Steven Tepp, from the US Copyright Office, who just recently defended the administration's position on ACTA by mocking the very legitimate concerns of many people about ACTA's exporting of stronger copyright laws, without any corresponding exceptions, combined with the fact that it would lock in currently in-flux US caselaw with no chance for Congress to fix mistakes by the courts. James Love alerts us to the news that Tepp has left the employment of the government to become the "Senior Director of Internet Piracy and Counterfeiting" for the US Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber of Commerce of course (a private organization, not to be confused -- as some people do -- with the government's Commerce Department) is famous for its anti-fact position on IP laws, where it always believes greater protectionism is better, despite the evidence. Of course, when all of the evidence is against the Chamber of Commerce, it came out with its own laughable study that confuses correlation with a causal relationship, and bases its conclusions on lumping together various companies and assigning their success or failure entirely to intellectual property laws. It sounds like Tepp should fit right in, though it again highlights the revolving door between the folks who make the policies and those who lobby for the policies.

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Filed Under: anti-piracy, copyright, steve tepp
Companies: us chamber of commerce

20 Comments

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Fake Tam, 7 Jul 2010 @ 8:56pm

What's your point Mike, instead of arguing against ACTA based on conflicts of interest why not argue against what the document actually says. What's the matter, you don't have any valid criticisms against what the document actually says?

Just because there are conflicts of interest doesn't mean that those conflicts of interest are responsible for the secrecy. There could be good reasons that nobody is allowed to know what the document actually says, like national security. Just because the government lied about the national security concern in the last leaked and subsequently released document doesn't mean that national security isn't an issue in these new secret documents. Maybe these new documents have highly classified information that terrorists can somehow use. You don't know which is why you shouldn't point out these conflicts of interests as something to worry about.

Besides, you can always hire a psychic to know what the document actually says. What, can't afford to hire a psychic? I'm sure Miss Cleo would give you a discount.

Oh, and I forgot one thing. It must be Wednesday which means it's a slow news day suggesting that there must be more to this story. Even the AP recognizes it's a slow news day.
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Fake Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2010 @ 9:06pm

Re:
Troll.
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Fake Angry Dude, 7 Jul 2010 @ 9:10pm

Re: Re:
punks!!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2010 @ 9:14pm

Re:
Oh, and I forgot one last argument.

Mike, you just have to trust them. Forget about their untrustworthy history and just trust them. After all, if you can't trust your own government then who can you trust?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2010 @ 9:15pm

"where it always believes greater protectionism is better, despite the evidence" - another semi-truth. since we have not operated "in the real world" without ip in some form for hundreds of years, there is no real indication what would happen without it.

a bunch of virtual hippies claiming we should all live in communes isnt evidence, its opinion.
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harbingerofdoom (profile), 7 Jul 2010 @ 9:17pm

Re:
morons are out, must be a day that ends with Y.

are you seriously suggesting that the citizens of ANY country should need to hire a psychic in order to know what its government is doing?

national security issues? a very hesitant maybe...
trade agreements? never.
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harbingerofdoom (profile), 7 Jul 2010 @ 9:18pm

Re: Re:
unless of course you are overthetoptam v2.0 in which case you take your argument to the most ridiculous extreme in order to show how stupid it sounds
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other fake tam, 7 Jul 2010 @ 9:29pm

left to its own devices time will always go on. ergo, there will always be more to this story. hence i am always right and all you commie hippies are always wrong.
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Fake Dennis Yang, 7 Jul 2010 @ 9:49pm

Nothing is more tragic than the spectacle of an intelligent, conscientious person wasting their precious time in a futile argument with a complete and utter twit, when that person could instead be playing with the kids, creating a great piece of art, or just reading a good book.

Hold on, did I say 'tragic'? I meant to say 'hilarious.'
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2010 @ 10:11pm

Re:
Even if true that doesn't negate the fact that the evidence suggests IP is bad.

See

http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.htm
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2010 @ 10:39pm

Re:
That TAM-impersonation was pretty good.
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imbrucy (profile), 8 Jul 2010 @ 5:53am

Re:
It sounds to me that your post is complete sarcasm, but it's so well written that I'm not sure if it's sarcasm or if you are just a little insane.

Well played.
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imbrucy (profile), 8 Jul 2010 @ 5:54am

Re: Re:
Except he included punctuation. That gave him away.
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Moron, 8 Jul 2010 @ 6:05am

I'm in a hurry
I'm confused about whether the US Chamber Of Commerce is a real government organization or just a lobbying group for big business that wants to look like it is a government organization.

Think I'll start a lobbying group and call it the Supreme Court of the United States.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 8 Jul 2010 @ 6:11am

Re: Re: Re:
In the interest of playing the game, I'll play myself as:

by Fake Dark Helmet, Jul 8th, 2010 @ 6:10am

All three of you are part of a government and alien conspiracy! It all began on the planet Titty-Poop and involves the NSA, the CIA, Paris Hilton, and my dogs Deelee and Roscoe, who are actually cybordogs that can shoot death rays from their nipples!

AAAHHHH! Tin foil hat! Tin foil hat!
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Beta (profile), 8 Jul 2010 @ 7:38am

my card
Tepp has left the employment of the government to become the "Senior Director of Internet Piracy and Counterfeiting"...

I... would give almost anything to have that job title.

(I know, I know, it would just be a question of who killed me first, James Bond or my own boss, but still.)
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 7:56am

Re: Re:
you point exactly at the type of report that is opinion, not fact, from two guys that 40 years ago would have been on a commune, not writing papers. again, no proof, just opinion.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 10:24am

Re: my card
Yeah, I had the same thought when I read that title. Then I thought, "Man, Internet Piracy and Counterfeiting must be really big business if they have their own division within the Chamber of Commerce."
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 7:05pm

Re: Re: Re:
To TAM, pages upon pages of citations and evidence are all just "opinion, not fact."

I imagine this is because his reading comprehension abilities stop at around a few sentences.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2010 @ 4:44am

Here's an idea. How about we ban stupid corporations like "US Chamber of Commerce", "US Copyright Group", etc. from calling themselves these names that are obviously intended to confuse the uninformed into thinking they are government entities.

Unfortunately, I doubt this would ever happen. Cunts.
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