President Obama Makes Vague Meaningless Statements About Net Neutrality, Patent Reform And Copyright Reform

from the anything-going-to-happen dept

Fri, Oct 10th 2014 12:36pm — Mike Masnick

President Obama was apparently in California on a campaign swing for the fall election (trying to help out some candidates and raise money) yesterday and chose to discuss the various issues that are important to folks around here... by giving generally vague and empty statements that might be important if they were actually backed up by anything.

On net neutrality:

Responding to a question from a woman who said her business is training people in “mindfulness meditation” — something the president joked that he needs — Obama said his administration was going to make sure net neutrality remains untouched.

“It’s what has unleashed the power of the Internet, and we don’t want to lose that or clog up the pipes,” Obama said.

Sounds good, right? But will he actually do anything about it? He's been saying the same basic thing for a while now, but the White House didn't even submit comments to the FCC. Either way, we'll believe it when we see it.

On patent reform:

The president also said his administration is committed to patent reform for the same reasons of encouraging growth.

He noted concerns about “folks filing phony patents, and costing some of our best innovators tons of money in court, or even if they don’t go to court, having to pay them off just because they’re making a bogus claim.”

Right, but he still let the trial lawyers kill patent reform, which had already been massively watered down. With a little more support from the White House, perhaps Harry Reid would not have caved in to the demands from the trial lawyers.

And, then, on copyright law, he tossed out some red meat for folks in Hollywood:

Obama emphasized seeking intellectual property protections and fighting piracy overseas.

“Piracy ends up being a huge problem overseas, and that’s an area where we’ve stepped up enforcement,” he said.

Of course, this contradicts with his statements about patents getting in the way of growth. Same can be true of excessive copyright law, hindering various innovations that could drive growth. Supporting greater enforcement overseas is still based on exaggerated claims of "losses" from an industry that still doesn't want to compete.

In the end, it's no surprise that he didn't have too much to say -- he's not going to break any major news in this manner -- but it's more just saying things to keep various groups happy, rather than actually doing something.

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Filed Under: barack obama, copyright, net neutrality, patents, president obama

37 Comments

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Applesauce, 10 Oct 2014 @ 12:39pm

Good Speaker
He's great at giving speeches, isn't he?
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John Fenderson (profile), 10 Oct 2014 @ 12:42pm

Re: Good Speaker
That is his primary skill as a politician, but even that's been slipping over the past couple of years.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2014 @ 12:43pm

Re: Good Speaker
When you're a puppet with a cult of personality, that's the only thing you'd be expected to be good at too.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2014 @ 1:04pm

The copyright comments nauseate me. Hollywood does not deserve to influence the greatest innovation for mankind in generations.
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Chris Brand, 10 Oct 2014 @ 1:07pm

overseas
So does the US have jurisdiction overseas now ? I guess maybe he was talking about Hawaii...?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2014 @ 1:28pm

Re: overseas
If "jurisdiction" was required for "enforcement", then we wouldn't be sending troops overseas to enforce our ideals either.

Basically this is "we're at war with _____" where the blank happens to be "piracy" in this case.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2014 @ 1:47pm

I'm betting on an ISIL attack on US soil shortly before the next election in which Obama declares martial law and ends up in a third term.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2014 @ 1:57pm

Re:
Given some of the maneuvers this administration has pulled since taking office - it almost seems like a possibility...

And with law enforcement owning all their neat-o military toys, they're all set to "control" the public.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2014 @ 2:00pm

Obama can't go work it out with congress. His idea of trying to make things work is give a speech. Missing in that is the actual getting in there and getting involved. Without that he can't get anything political done that involves congress or money funding for programs he'd like to have happen.

Honestly, I don't think he likes people nor politics very much. He doesn't have the ability to really talk to people, rather than talk at them in speech form. Evidently he has a thin skin too because of the way the administration treats journalists as well as the White House News Corp.

The only thing he has left is the executive order, which he's been trying to rule with rather than get laws passed supporting his goals.

Expect nothing to change from what it is now.
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John Fenderson (profile), 10 Oct 2014 @ 2:18pm

Re:
That's not how marital law works. Obama (or any president) would have to figure out a way to dissolve the government to make this happen.
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John Fenderson (profile), 10 Oct 2014 @ 2:19pm

Re: Re:
"That's not how marital law works"

I meant "martial", of course. It might be how marital law works.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2014 @ 2:29pm

Re: Re:
Or control a sufficient majority of it?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2014 @ 2:35pm

Are the same 'folks' filing phony patents the same 'folks' we tortured? Maybe this is just their way of retaliating within the letter of the law
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2014 @ 3:07pm

So basically campaign trail lip service. Can't have the Republicans taking control of the House and Senate.

Obama has had plenty of time to address the public on these issues. This is the first time I've heard him speak about them.

I'm still waiting on that hope and change that was promised to me back in 2008.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2014 @ 3:25pm

Obama =
Vague and meaningless... be they speeches or statements.

Vague and Meaningless hope and change.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2014 @ 3:28pm

Re: Re:
The President can declare a state of emergency, with martial law a part thereof until the emergency is over. So long as the Congress and/or the courts agree there is no problem.

If the Congress and/or the courts disagree with the state of emergency and any resulting martial law, then you'll see a fight.
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RD, 10 Oct 2014 @ 3:34pm

Re:
"The only thing he has left is the executive order, which he's been trying to rule with rather than get laws passed supporting his goals. "

Oh yes? And how would that be, exactly? By issuing LESS EO's than EVERY previous president back to FDR? Maybe you should actually google shit before you try to spread shit.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2014 @ 4:48pm

Re: Re:
Do you still think we have a government , that's been replaced by a corporation long ago.
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trollificus (profile), 10 Oct 2014 @ 4:52pm

Re:
You are perfectly welcome to hope for change.
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trollificus (profile), 10 Oct 2014 @ 5:05pm

Re: Re:
The raw number of EOs is less important than what he is implementing via executive order.

And of course he is only resorting to using EOs because...you wanna do this like every other apologist in every other political thread on the entire Internet??

Never mind, we both know it's "...because the obstructionist Republicans refuse to work in a bipartisan manner!"

I find the continued existence of Obama apologists to be as amazing as the continued existence of flat-earthers and breatheairians.
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Carrie (profile), 10 Oct 2014 @ 5:34pm

Copyright Law Doesn't Apply Overseas!
Obama Says: “Piracy ends up being a huge problem overseas, and that’s an area where we’ve stepped up enforcement."

Courts Say: It is an “undisputed axiom that United States copyright law has no extraterritorial application.” Subafilms, Ltd. v. MGM-Pathe Commc’ns Co., 24 F.3d 1088, 1093 (9th Cir. 1994) (en banc)

Anyone notice a contradiction?
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RD, 10 Oct 2014 @ 6:31pm

Re: Copyright Law Doesn't Apply Overseas!
Explain what happened to MegaUpload then?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2014 @ 7:16pm

Re: Re: Copyright Law Doesn't Apply Overseas!
MegaUploaded leased server on American soil. Thus the DOJ claims jurisdiction through extradition. Everyone knows the lawsuit against MegaUpload is Joe Biden throwing a scrap of meat to the dogs in Hollywood because SOPA was defeated.

We even have Chris Dodd on record threatening to withhold campaign funding if he wasn't given a return on his campaign investment.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2014 @ 9:19pm

Re:
With you on that. As TF put it, a cartoon company should not be regulating critical infrastructure.
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Carrie, 11 Oct 2014 @ 9:12am

Re: Re: Re: Copyright Law Doesn't Apply Overseas!
What happened to Megaupload is massive government overreach.
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John Fenderson (profile), 11 Oct 2014 @ 9:28am

Re: Re: Re:
Martial law is actually a very interesting subject. On the federal level, there are almost no rules whatsoever about it and it has been taken up or discussed only a few times. At the state level, the rules are much more clear.

Probably the most authoritative statement about federal martial law came from a single supreme court case, where they said it is "the law of military necessity in the actual presence of war. It is administered by the general of the army, and is in fact his will. Of necessity it is arbitrary, but it must be obeyed."

So, the best we can come to is that is requires the "actual presence of war". Lawyers could redefine that, of course, but the intention seems clear: it could only happen if the US is actually invaded. An ISIS attack wouldn't come close to that level.

If a president were to declare martial law in any other circumstance, it would cause a governmental fight on the order of a coup, with a good chance of leading to civil war.

In other words, it is extremely unlikely, as it would put the very base of of the president's power in extreme peril.
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John Fenderson (profile), 11 Oct 2014 @ 9:31am

Re: Re: Re:
Indeed it has, but corporate rule is still technically a government.

But, to answer your question more directly, yes, I think we still have a government. It is corrupt and largely (not completely) controlled by corporate interests, but it does still exist. And we need to save it.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Oct 2014 @ 9:56am

Re: Re: Good Speaker
He doesn't really care anymore. He already got his via revolving door favors and whatnot. He'll probably never be poor again.

The presidency has become a jackpot whereby you can offer various businesses favors in exchange for favors. Whoever does the best job conning the American people to vote for them wins. Whoever gets elected is the winner of the jackpot and they get to scam the American people in exchange for huge favors. What a nice game.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2014 @ 8:55am

Piracy overseas? In the seas?
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me, 12 Oct 2014 @ 2:43pm

hollywood
why doesnt hollywood fuck off and go to hell?
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staff, 12 Oct 2014 @ 6:58pm

more dissembling by Masnick
'“folks filing phony patents, and costing some of our best innovators tons of money in court, or even if they don’t go to court, having to pay them off just because they’re making a bogus claim.”'

Lies and damned lies. No one ever backs up those accusations and you dullards just perpetuate the lies.

Can you say ‘dissemble’? Just because they call it patent "reform" doesn't mean it is.

Property rights and jobs in America are now hanging from a frayed thread. These changes are killing our small and startup firms and the jobs they would have created. When government fails to uniformly and justly enforce property rights they contribute to the wealth and the power of the well placed few, suppress the economic potential of the rest, and support giant monopolies that enslave the public. Some in Congress and the White House continue to follow the lead of their giant multinational campaign donors like lambs...pulling America along to the slaughter.

http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/05/07/patent-cash-flows-to-senate-judiciary-commit tee-members/
http://www.npr.org/2013/11/06/243022966/secret-persuasion-how-big-campaign-donors-stay-a nonymous

All this patent troll and ‘reform’ talk is mere dissembling by China, huge multinational thieves and their paid puppets. They have already damaged the American patent system so that property rights are teetering on lawlessness. Simply put, their intent is to legalize theft -to twist and weaken the patent system so it can only be used by them and no one else. Then they can steal at will and destroy their small competitors AND WITH THEM THE JOBS THEY WOULD HAVE CREATED. Meanwhile, the huge multinationals ship more and more American jobs to China and elsewhere overseas.

Do you know how to make a Stradivarius violin? Neither does anyone else. Why? There was no protection for creations in his day so he like everyone else protected their creations by keeping them secret. Civilization has lost countless creations and discoveries over the ages for the same reason. Think we should get rid of or weaken patent rights? Think again.

Most important for America is what the patent system does for America’s economy. Our founders: Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and others felt so strongly about the rights of inventors that they included inventors rights to their creations and discoveries in the Constitution. They understood the trade off. Inventors are given a limited monopoly and in turn society gets the benefits of their inventions (telephone, computer, airplane, automobile, lighting, etc) into perpetuity AND THE JOBS the commercialization of those inventions bring. For 200 years the patent system has not only fueled the American economy, but the world’s. If we weaken the patent system, we force inventors underground like Stradivarius and in turn weaken our economy and job creation. For a robust and stable economy America depends on a strong patent system accessible to all -large and small, not the watered down weak system the large multinationals and China are foisting on America.

For the truth, please see http://www.truereform.piausa.org/
http://piausa.wordpress.com/
http://www.kentucky.com/2014/05/27/3260938/george-ward-patent-reform-could.html?sp=/99/349/
http://ww w.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/142741
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John Fenderson (profile), 13 Oct 2014 @ 7:57am

Re: Re: Re: Good Speaker
"He'll probably never be poor again."

He wasn't at risk of that even if he never became president. In our current system, you can't become president without already being wealthy.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Oct 2014 @ 8:46am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
So, the best we can come to is that is requires the "actual presence of war".

Aaaah, so that's what "war on drugs" is all about.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Oct 2014 @ 12:52pm

Re: overseas
It does enter as the DEA in Canada (coupled with RCMP Drug Task Force, which is a tiny organization that does not prevent Canadians from getting painkillers because X doctor has filled his quote of painkiller scripts per year or whatever the fuck stupidity the DEA enforces on professionals), there was 3 raids where the DEA was left entering Canada, at least news channels here were mostly against it, their political analysts all saying "it's all well and good to stop drug dealing but this is stepping on our sovereignty".

What's ridiculous is that it wasn't huge mafia or biker gangs busts (biker gangs are still quite a threat to public safety in Canada with their bunkers (with surveillance towers on 4 corners nonetheless) right in the middle of many cities. No it was internet chemical vendors who were selling to americans products banned in america that did it. Wanna hear of something scarily Orwellian? Trying to reach one of the sites after a DEA/RCMP raid on the last canadian vendor to get caught doing stupid things like selling to the US, their website redirected you to the DHS website. Chilling. I'd try it again to see if that's still the case but even with my vpn service with about 120 servers, I won't even risk it and be put on some kind of list.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Oct 2014 @ 12:58pm

Re:
Everytime Alex Jonians predictions of the kind are blabbered by some overly paranoid entity, you can be sure they will not happen.

The false flag is ISIS/ISIL itself, you don't wanna know who they really consist of, you might be labelled a special kind of racist (and there's only one kind of racism that's really bad, of course). When an arab (syrian) guy defected the isis army,he confirmed that the worst most violent of them all are the French Muslism...and the Domneh. I'll leave you people look up what the Domneh is, but it's something many countries in the middle east is keeping down (it's not a good thing to mention anything about this word, even saying the word could put one in trouble if heard by authorities).
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Oct 2014 @ 1:01pm

Re:
>The only thing he has left is the executive order, which he's been trying to rule with rather than get laws passed supporting his goals.

You can't blame him for that because since the 2010 midterms when repugs got control of the House, massively, they all literally said their policy is "saying no to everything Democrats or the President proposes", which was caught on film if you haven't seen that. "We're the party of HELL NO." - John McCain, a few weeks ago
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Oct 2014 @ 1:08pm

Re: more dissembling by Masnick
>property rights

Claiming to own property is an act of violence and repression. You'll learn if we don't extinct ourselves this century.
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