How Copyright Extension Undermined Copyright: The Copyright Of Parking (Part I)

If You're In Silicon Valley, Come Talk With Rep. Jason Chaffetz About How We Prevent Another SOPA

from the join-us dept

Mon, May 21st 2012 3:54pm — Mike Masnick

As many of you remember from the SOPA debates in Congress, one of the loudest voices speaking out against the bill was Rep. Jason Chaffetz. His repeated admonition in the House Judiciary Committee concerning how ridiculous it was to proceed without hearing from actual technical experts -- i.e., "the nerds" -- got plenty of well-deserved attention (including from Jon Stewart, who wryly noted that the nerds in this case meant "experts"). Rep. Chaffetz will be coming to Silicon Valley on Thursday, May 24th, for a roundtable lunch discussion, put on by the Congressional Internet Caucus, as a part of their excellent 2012 State of the Net West Townhall Series. These free events have been a great way to interact with policy makers, so if you're in Silicon Valley, I highly recommend signing up and stopping by. I'll be there, and as with all of the Congressional Internet Caucus events, I expect plenty of other interesting attendees, and expect a useful and lively discussion with Rep. Chaffetz about how we prevent another SOPA situation, as well as various other issues impacting innovation and technology.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: congressional internet caucus, house judiciary committee, jason chaffetz, silicon valley, sopa

12 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 21 May 2012 @ 4:14pm

I'll save you a trip. There will be no SOPA-like legislation for at least a decade. It's all industry agreements from here on out.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 May 2012 @ 4:50pm

Re:
You mean "Trade negotiations" I.E "Give me all the rights to set laws in your country, take power from you, and force to bend you to my will, or I'll destroy you"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 May 2012 @ 4:55pm

Really, there is no surprise Silicon valley would like to avoid another SOPA.
Talk about preaching to the converted.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 May 2012 @ 5:15pm

Re: Re:
Yeah, those too. But it'll be more like the six strikes, ad and payment processor best practices as well.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Pwdrskir (profile), 21 May 2012 @ 5:22pm

Bill for the Users
Why isn't there a push for a bill that would guard against the likes of SOPA? A Firewall Bill that promotes the anti-SOPA sentiment.

Rep. Chaffetz sounds like the kind of guy that would a least get the bill some press, that's all it took for SOPA to get pulled.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mike Masnick (profile), 21 May 2012 @ 5:29pm

Re:
Really, there is no surprise Silicon valley would like to avoid another SOPA.
Talk about preaching to the converted.

Yeah, how dare he talk with people about how a bad bill got stopped with the people who helped stop the bill.

It's almost like you want bad legislation to pass...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TtfnJohn (profile), 21 May 2012 @ 6:14pm

Re: Re:
It is, isn't it? In fact I think he did and does!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The eejit (profile), 22 May 2012 @ 12:39am

Re: Re:
Well, he's a culture theief, so yes, he wants the bad legislation to pass so that he can steal better from culture.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2012 @ 2:26am

Seems like another promotional tour for the TechdirtPac. When are you going to declare and make your lobbyist activities more on the up and up Mike?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Glen, 22 May 2012 @ 8:45am

Re:
Who the hell is Kyle and why should I care? Scammers are a step below trolls.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mason Wheeler, 22 May 2012 @ 10:23am

Re: Bill for the Users
If this is what we want--and I agree, it's sorely needed--what we need to do is undermine the foundation of SOPA. Its abusive provisions didn't come from nowhere; they're built upon the DMCA. And until we repeal and reverse the abusive provisions of the DMCA, people will continue to use it as a base to build more abuses on top of.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Dave Xanatos, 22 May 2012 @ 1:10pm

Re:
TechdirtPac?? Where do I donate????
[ link to this | view in thread ]