Trump's 'Cyber' Policy Against ISIS Is... 'Hey Look At This New Poll!'

from the well,-that's-something dept

While Hillary Clinton's tech policy proposals seem to be the standard mix of empty promises and vague nothingness designed to not pin her down on anything really serious, Donald Trump's tech policy proposals have basically been incomprehensible nonsense.

Trump apparently feels that this kind of incomprehensible nonsense is working for him, so he doubled down this week. As first noted by CNN reporter Sopan Deb, Trump responded to a question from (Trump supporter) General Michael Flynn about ISIS and cybersecurity with a word salad of complete nonsense: If you can't read that here's the key part:

Michael Flynn: And to stay on ISIS a little bit because this is a really -- I think this is an important topic - it's one of the national security threats that our country faces today. You have described at times different components of a strategy. Military, cyber, financial and ideological. Can you just expand on those four a little bit?

Donald Trump: Well, that's it. And you know cyber is becoming so big today. It's becoming something that a number of years ago, short number of years ago, wasn't even a word. And now the cyber is so big. And you know you look at what they're doing with the Internet, how they're taking and recruiting people through the Internet. And part of it is the psychology because so many people think they're winning. Any you know, there's a whole big thing. Even today's psychology — where CNN came out with a big poll. Their big poll came out today that Trump is winning. It's good psychology, you know. It's good psychology. I know that for a fact because people they didn't call me yesterday, they're calling me today. So that's the way life works, right?

But I think we're doing very well and I really thank the state of Virginia, so many different places have been so incredible. So I thank you very much. But cyber has been very, very important and it's becoming more and more important as you look and a lot of it does have to do with ideology and psychology and lots of other things. You know, we're in a different world today than we were in 20 years ago, 30 years ago. And one of the biggest problems and one of the reasons that we have to knock them out is because the weaponry is so powerful today. You know, in the old days, you could've said, "Well look they have rifles.

We have rifles. We shoot and they have uniforms. We have uniforms." This is a whole different war. The weaponry is so powerful. And we have to beat them over there. We're allowing people to come over here. We're allowing, think of it. Your military people -- we're allowing people to come over here. And you know, I used to watch the migration, and I'd see people with cell phones, I said, "where did they get cell phones?" And some of those people had very horrible things on their cell phones including the ISIS flag. And you say, what are we doing? What are we doing? But we're allowing people to come here and we don't know. Do they turn on us? Are a small percentage of them bad? Because if a small percentage is bad, that's not acceptable. That's not acceptable. We can't take the risk. Just a small percentage can do such damage. So we can't take the risk. So, General, the bottom line is we have to get very tough and we have to get very smart or we're not gonna have much of a country left. I can tell you that right now.

So, uh, wait. What? Apparently Donald Trump's "cybersecurity" policy is "Hey, look at this poll that says I'm winning!" And also "How did ISIS get cell phones?" Meanwhile, the brave Philip Bump over at the Washington Post tried to fact check the only clear factual statement in that rambling mess: that the word "cyber" was just created a few years ago. Of course, that's not true (though I guess that depends on what you consider to be a "short number of years ago"), but I'd argue that the fact that "cyber" predates the birth of one Donald Trump, that the statement isn't all that accurate.

But, really, who gives a fuck concerning when Donald Trump thinks the word "cyber" was first coined? The real question should be on what's the actual policy here, because in those three paragraphs above there's nothing even remotely resembling a policy, or a coherent idea. Clinton's tech policy is a hot mess of emptiness, but at least there's a policy that people can look at and talk about. Trump, on the other hand doesn't even seem to recognize what cybersecurity means and what a policy would entail.

Oh, and as for the claims about how ISIS is "recruiting people through the internet" multiple studies on that have suggested that ISIS's internet recruitment strategy isn't all that effective -- that most recruiting is done through real world networks, rather than virtual ones. But you know which groups really are having success growing their online presence? White nationalists and neo Nazis, with many of them strongly supporting... Donald Trump.

“On Twitter, Isis' preferred social platform, American white nationalist movements have seen their followers grow by more than 600 per cent since 2012,” the study, authored by JM Berger, stated. “Today, they outperform Isis in nearly every social metric, from follower counts to tweets per day.”

[....]

Donald Trump is a prominent subject among white nationalists on Twitter. According to the study, white nationalist users are “heavily invested” in the Republican’s candidacy. Tweets mentioned Mr Trump more than other popular topics among the groups.

So, yeah. I wonder what Donald Trump's "cyber policy" to deal with those folks would be.

Filed Under: cybersecurity, donald trump, isis, national security, policy

Why Does The Copyright Office Keep Acting Like A Lobbying Arm For Hollywood?

from the doesn't-seem-appropriate dept

We've noted a few times recently that the Copyright Office has inserted itself into policy disputes where it has no business being. It's important to note that the role of the Copyright Office is supposed to be a rather specific one: to handle the registration of copyrights. It has little official roles in terms of actual policymaking -- the role is more about executing on the policy decisions of Congress. And, yet, over the years the Copyright Office has become a revolving door way station for execs from the entertainment industry, where they seek to use the Copyright Office as something of a taxpayer funded pro-legacy industry lobbying arm. Just in the last few months, we've reported on how the Copyright Office was flat out lying to the FCC about how copyright works in an effort to support the cable industry's plan to stop competition in set top boxes. Then there's its plan to strip websites of their safe harbors by making it a bureaucratic nightmare. Oh, and also its new plan to mess up the part of copyright law that protects libraries and archives. And let's not forget the absolutely ridiculous hearings the Copyright Office held a few months ago about the DMCA safe harbors, where they seemed 100% focused on pushing the RIAA/MPAA's plan to blame Google for everything.

What the hell is going on with the Copyright Office? This is not in its mandate and yet it's run like a government-funded lobbying arm of Hollywood? The folks over at Public Knowledge have now started putting together a long list (much longer than the above examples) of the Copyright Office incorrectly weighing in on policy issues, taking positions that favor the desires of the legacy copyright industries, rather than what the law actually says. It's a long and very troubling list.

As Public Knowledge notes: "If you’ve ever wondered what a captured agency looks like, look no further."

Here are just a couple of the examples from the list:

Endorsing SOPA

The Copyright Office famously endorsed the doomed (and downright awful) Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, collectively known as SOPA/PIPA. Despite the fact that the bill attacked safe harbor mechanisms, allowed the US government to censor foreign websites, made posting copyrighted work under any circumstances a felony, and swept together all user-driven sites with upload capabilities as “promoting piracy,” the Copyright Office was unwavering in its support. In testimony before Congress, Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante called the bill “a sound policy choice,” “measured,” and thanked its drafters for drafting language that “would bestow a number of important responsibilities on the Copyright Office.”

[....]

A “Making Available” Right that Never Existed

In a 2016 report, the Copyright Office declared that U.S. copyright law had an unwritten right that gave copyright holders the power to dictate how, when, and under what circumstances their works were “made available”--or even offered--to consumers. The Office took a “squint-and-you’ll-see-it” approach, saying that the right existed by implication through a “gestalt”-style reading of the distribution, public performance, and public display rights. Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante even commented that “People question if we have ‘making available’ in the US, and we do--via treaties--and this report will make it clear that we have making available already. The question is whether Congress needs to do anything to make that clear or not.”

First, that’s not how treaties (or laws, really) work. Signing a treaty doesn’t make specific rights magically appear in U.S. law. Here--and in most cases--Congress has to actually write statutes to implement treaty requirements. If they decline to write the actual statutes, that’s a pretty clear sign that they’re not interested. And aside from the fact that the right doesn’t actually, you know, exist anywhere in the statute, the Copyright Office conveniently omitted the fact that numerous courts (the majority of those considering it, in fact) have rejected the idea.

The creation of an imaginary right wasn’t the only thing wrong in the office’s report; it also claimed that the Copyright Act’s requirement that a copy be a “tangible medium of expression” didn’t really mean anything and could encompass even offered transmissions of data--accepted or not. Alarmingly, the office decided that merely putting files in an accessible place would make a person just as liable as actually distributing them. As support, they cited a handful of minor district court cases from places such as Massachusetts, ignored higher court rulings to the contrary, deemed it an “unbroken line of authority,” and called it a day.

Yikes.

It's no secret that the Copyright Office wants more of a say in policy issues. This is a big part of the reason why it has been not-so-subtly lobbying to have the Office itself removed from the Library of Congress and set up as an independent agency (or, possibly, merged into the Patent and Trademark Office). But when it's already lobbying in ways that directly counteract the law (which more than one court has noted recently...) and appearing to act like a taxpayer-funded lobbying arm for some private companies, it raises some fairly serious concerns about the priorities and motivations of the Copyright Office and its staff.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright office, library of congress, lobbying, policy

No Matter Who Our Next President Is, They Won't Understand Technology

from the that-seems-like-a-problem dept

Politico has an article with a misleading title -- the return of the Luddite president -- which discusses how neither of the two major party Presidential candidates are even remotely tech savvy. The headline is an unfortunate oversell. Luddites aren't just people who don't know anything about technology. They're people who actively dislike certain technologies, in the belief that such advances will harm their own livelihoods. In a broader sense, the term is used to discuss people who generally dislike the march of technological progress. Again, that does not appear to be the case with either of the two candidates, who (at best) might just be described as agnostic to/indifferent to new technologies and somewhat ignorant on what that might mean from a policy perspective.

Clinton's tech travails are all over the headlines, including the lax security of her home-brewed email server and her documented struggles with fax machines — and the recently disclosed hacking of the Democratic National Committee's emails won't do much to burnish her party's image of cyber competence.

But Trump's hardly a candidate for the Geek Squad either, despite the prolific round-the-clock tweeting strategy he uses to dominate the headlines. He has boasted that he hardly ever sends emails — and, like Clinton, he often relies on staff to print news articles off the internet.

“I’m just not a believer in email,” Trump said during a news conference Wednesday where he criticized Clinton's use of a private server when she was secretary of State.

Of course, this is still problematic! Technological innovation is going to have a massive impact on a huge list of issues that any President is going to face over the next four years. And not understanding those issues, let alone how they may impact the policy choices that are being made is worrisome -- just not as worrisome as someone who actively dislikes technological progress.

Still, there are reasonable concerns here:

“These are two candidates who don't have their hands on the technology, and that’s unfortunate, because without that it’s difficult to understand this stuff on a deeper, more visceral level,” said Peter Leyden, a futurist and former managing editor of Wired who was an early Obama backer in Silicon Valley....

[....]

“We're on the verge of a fundamentally different economy that’s being absolutely transformed by the next wave of technology,” Leyden said. “It will have huge ramifications on society. And someone running the goddamn country has to know that."

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem likely. And that's probably going to keep us at Techdirt pretty busy for the next four years.

Filed Under: donald trump, hillary clinton, innovation, policy, politics, president

After Nine Years Of Censorship, Canada Finally Unmuzzles Its Scientists

from the justin-trudeau-strikes-again dept

Here's something we don't see enough of here on Techdirt: a long and dispiriting saga with a happy ending. Over the years, we've reported on how Canada's previous prime minister, Stephen Harper, tried to stifle dissenting voices among government scientists and librarians, all of whom were expected to self-censor, even outside their work. But as most people know by now, the new Canadian administration under Justin Trudeau has a rather different style, and fortunately that also applies to how it treats its scientists. As an article in Nature reports, things may be moving too slowly for some, but at least they are moving:

the [Canadian] government is loosening its grip on communications but the shift at some agencies has not been as swift and comprehensive as many had hoped. And with the newfound freedom to speak, the full impact of the former restrictions is finally becoming clear. Canadian scientists and government representatives are opening up about what it was like to work under the former policy and the kind of consequences it had. Some of the officials who imposed the rules are talking about how the restrictions affected the morale and careers of researchers.

As well as filling in the background to this welcome move, Nature explores some of the stories that are starting to emerge, like this one:

During the 1970s, [Ian Stirling, a prominent biologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada] had gone to meetings in Canada that were also attended by Soviet scientists. The visiting researchers would arrive, he says, "with a KGB guy, who would stand there with no smiles, a scowl on his face and arms crossed". Stirling still finds it unbelievable that the Canadian government used similar tactics at conferences. In 2012, for example, the Canadian news outlet CBC reported that media minders had shadowed scientists from Environment Canada at a meeting of the International Polar Year in Montreal.

It's important to remember that Canada is not alone in having these muzzling problems. The article notes that during the administration of President George W. Bush, US government scientists complained that inconvenient data was being altered or simply suppressed. More recently, the UK government unveiled plans to forbid its scientists from lobbying for changes in their own field. Although it has now introduced some exemptions from the controversial "gagging clause", these seem half-hearted and possibly temporary. It obviously needs to pay more attention to Justin.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: canada, dissent, free speech, justin trudeau, opinions, policy, scientists, stephen harper

In the Wake Of The Latest Terrorist Attacks, Here's A Rational Approach To Saving Lives

from the psychology-of-security dept

The knee-jerk response of politicians to terrorist attacks -- calling for more surveillance, more crackdowns, more displays of purposeless force -- is by now so routine that we don't even remark on it. We tend to go along with their plans because we are very poor at estimating risks, and thus often end up making bad decisions about trade-offs -- specifically, trading off liberty in the (misguided) hope that it will deliver security. That's not a new insight -- Bruce Schneier wrote two fascinating posts on what he called "The Psychology of Security" as far back as 2008. But maybe it's time to start challenging a strategy that hasn't worked, doesn't work and will never work. Maybe we should start pushing for an alternative response to terrorist attacks -- one based on logic and the facts, not rhetoric and fear. That's exactly what Björn Brembs, Professor of Neurogenetics at Regensburg University in Germany, has done in a short blog post about a more rational approach that avoids bad trade-offs. As he writes:

It is very difficult to prevent casualties such as those in the recent terror attacks in Madrid, London, Paris, Brussels or elsewhere, without violating basic human rights and abandoning hard-won liberties.

So what might we do instead? Brembs suggests a new kind of "death prevention program." Not one based on futile attempts to stop every terrorist attack, but a compensatory plan to save far more lives than terrorists ever take:

There are ~1.2 [million] preventable deaths in Europe alone every year. These deaths are due to causes such as lung cancer, accidental injuries, alcohol related diseases, suicides and self-inflicted injuries. With even in the 1970s and 1980s terrorist-related fatalities never exceeding 500 per year, we are confident that we will be able, from now on, to save at least 100 lives for every one that is being taken in a terrorist attack.

To reach this ambitious goal, we will start with increasing our efforts to prevent alcohol and tobacco-related deaths through effective public-health intervention programs as well as basic and applied biomedical research into the prevention, causes and treatment of these diseases and disorders. With about 30,000 annual fatalities in traffic-related accidents, we will also introduce European-wide speed limits, strong enforcement via speed-traps and an increased police force which collaborates across Europe. Drivers convicted of violating speed limits or DUI will have their driver's licenses withdrawn for extended periods of time. Should these activities fail to reach these goals, we will start targeting more areas.

Although it could be argued that some of those measures are themselves restrictions on freedom (and things like speed traps haven't been shown to make the roads any safer), against the background of today's harsh anti-terror laws, and plans for even more surveillance -- the UK's Snooper's Charter, for example -- those don't look as bad. In any case, implementation details are less important than shifting emphasis to this very different approach. The idea of focusing on stopping preventable deaths caused by known factors, rather than chasing after unpredictable events is a good one. Moreover, as Brembs writes, a "death prevention program" would not only preserve basic human rights and civil liberties better than today's response, it would also benefit the economy and boost employment:

Our investment in basic and applied research will yield discoveries that will benefit all of humanity long after the last terrorist has sacrificed his life in vain. With our new program, every single terrorist attack will save the lives of countless more citizens than it has cost, turning terrorism into a net life-saving activity.

That, surely, is the way to truly defeat the terrorists -- rather than handing them an easy victory by accepting disproportionate measures that destroy the very freedoms politicians claim to defend.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: attacks, bjoern brembs, death, death prevention program, policy, response, terrorism, terrorists

UK Government Forbids Publicly-Funded Scientists And Academics From Giving Advice It Disagrees With

from the la-la-la-la-la-not-listening dept

Three years ago, Techdirt wrote about the Canadian government muzzling scientists and librarians, in a clear effort to prevent them from pointing out that some of Canada's policies were scientifically stupid. That was a blatant attempt to censor those who had not just inconvenient opinions but also awkward facts that would have made life difficult for the Canadian government. The UK wants to do something similar, by forbidding scientists and academics from using their expertise to push for changes in policy -- even in private. As The Guardian reported:

The proposal -- announced by the Cabinet Office earlier this month -- would block researchers who receive government grants from using their results to lobby for changes to laws or regulations.

For example, an academic whose government-funded research showed that new regulations were proving particularly harmful to the homeless would not be able to call for policy change.

Similarly, ecologists who found out that new planning laws were harming wildlife would not be able to raise the issue in public, while climate scientists whose findings undermined government energy policy could have work suppressed.

The new policy is contained in an amendment to the agreement that all those receiving grants from the UK government must sign. As the press release announcing the move explained:

A new clause to be inserted into all new and renewed grant agreements will make sure that taxpayer funds are spent on improving people’s lives and good causes, rather than lobbying for new regulation or using taxpayers’ money to lobby for more government funding.

That might sound reasonable, especially the last part about not being able to lobby for more funding. It is aimed mainly at organizations that receive government grants, but many academics believe that it is so loosely worded that it will also apply to them, and will prevent them from pushing for new regulations in any circumstances. Even if that is not the UK government's intention, the mere existence of the policy is bound to have a chilling effect on the academics, since few will want to run the risk of having their grants taken away by inadvertently breaking the new rules.

Academics aren't the only ones who are worried. Recently, a group of MPs who sit on the important House of Commons Science and Technology Committee wrote a letter to the UK government expressing their concern that:

The "anti-lobbying" clause to be inserted into new grant agreements will create a barrier to evidence-based policymaking and will have unintended effects on the work of [Parliament's advisory] select committees.

Specifically, the politicians on the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee wrote:

We are concerned that the Cabinet Office's announcement has created ambiguity, and that researchers will become reluctant to present to us the policy recommendations that arise from their work. Academics may also become unwilling to take on advisory positions in Government or Parliament, and may even feel uncomfortable speaking at conferences where policymakers are present, for fear of falling foul of this clause.

The well-known UK academic and medical campaigner Ben Goldacre has written a powerful and informative piece explaining why he believes his "lobbying" of politicians serves an important function. He says:

I don't just want this ban overturned: I want to see more academics talking to policymakers, and I want the public to know what we do, so that they can decide if it's good or bad.

Indeed, he suggests that rather than forbidding academics from lobbying for new regulations, they should be encouraged and even trained to do so:

If you're an academic who lobbies, then don't be shy, and don't be scared: you should share your experiences, and your techniques. If you want to waste even more time on activities with no credit and no hope of funding, then perhaps we could set up a course, or a forum, to pool knowledge on better ways to interact with [the UK government]. And lastly, if you’re a politician, and you really want to ban this activity, then shame on you. You're a failure, an obstacle to good progress, and an outlier. But there's one final piece of happier news. You won't last long.

Let's hope he's right.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: academics, expertise, lobbying, policy, scientists, uk

DailyDirt: Warnings Are Not Hazardous To Your Health

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Cities have enacted laws against smoking, salt, sugar, trans fat... and it's raising awareness of these unhealthy habits. But is it really effective at improving general health? Maybe not. It's difficult to actually measure what effect these health warnings have when the result is essentially a decades-long experiment on participants that aren't monitored that well. However, smoking is down, diabetes is no longer on the rise, and consumption of sugary soda is also down. (NB: It probably wasn't warning labels alone that caused these trends.)

• NYC is starting to require a "salt warning" on restaurant menus for items that exceed 2,300 milligrams of sodium. While sodium intake can contribute to high blood pressure and complications, it's not clear that targeting salt intake alone is a silver bullet for improving health. [url]
• Too much sugar isn't healthy, and there's a surprising amount of "added sugar" in packaged foods. The website sugarscience.org is dedicated to informing everyone about the possible health impact of too much sugar in a diet. [url]
• Food labels warning about trans fat might not actually make us measurably healthier. Eaters gonna eat. But education can't hurt, right? [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our holiday gift ideas for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: ban, diet, education, fat, food, food label, health, high blood pressure, policy, salt warning, sin tax, sugar

John Oliver Would Like You To Replace Your Bogus Facebook Copyright Privacy Statement With His Own

from the do-it-now dept

A few years back, we wrote about that ridiculous thing that clueless Facebook users were posting, in which they thought that by posting some idiotic and usually wrong text that sometimes referenced copyright law or random international criminal laws, it would mean that Facebook's terms of service no longer applied to them. Here's the version of this nonsense we wrote about then:

In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention).

For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times!

(Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their Facebook Wall. This will place them under protection of copyright laws, By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff under Facebook’s direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute).

Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates.

We wrote about it after the MPAA's Chris Dodd used it as an example of the importance of copyright law -- because Dodd appears to feel that copyright misinformation is a good thing.

Anyway, as lots of people have been noticing lately, this little bit of insanity is back in a big way -- and judging from the number of people talking about it and news stories covering it, it's bigger this time than in the past (though, amazingly, I've yet to see it anywhere on my Facebook feed -- which either means people I'm friends with are smarter than that -- or Facebook's algorithm knows enough to keep that crap away from me). Matt Schruers, over at the Disruptive Competition Project, has a good post on how the unenforceability of unilateral proclamations made online is a really good thing for the internet.

But, the best response has to be from Mr. John Oliver himself, who apparently took time out of his daily schedule to create a video debunking the ridiculous hoax... and replacing it with some new viral memery, which includes reposting this very video.

Done and done.

Filed Under: berner convention, copyright, john oliver, policy, rome statute, social media
Companies: facebook

Hacking Policy Through Innovation, Not Lobbying

from the play-by-silicon-valley's-rules dept

As we continue to build The Copia Institute, we'll be writing a weekly column & newsletter discussing bigger issues around innovation and abundance. These pieces will be cross-posted here on Techdirt, but we invite you to check them out on the new Copia website as well.

One of the first questions that comes up when I first tell people about the Copia Institute, is "how is this different than 'x'?" with "x" being any number of organizations, from activist groups to trade groups to DC lobbying organizations. And the answer is that we're not any of those things. In fact, while we know many people in such places, and will likely have opportunities to work with them in certain cases, we're focused on doing something very different: letting innovation lead the way, rather than policymakers. That's not to say we're not interested in policy questions, we're just looking for ways to innovate solutions to them rather than waiting for policymakers in distant cities to come up with some new regulation.

Over and over again we've seen policymakers and people from the policy world show up in Silicon Valley and talk about how entrepreneurs need to spend more time "bridging the gap" between DC and Silicon Valley, or something like that. But, almost inevitably, this isn't very effective. There are, certainly, connections to be made, but too often the "connection" that policymakers are talking about is getting Silicon Valley to "play the DC game." And very, very few entrepreneurs and technologists are truly interested in playing that game. To them, it's the antithesis of why they're innovators in the first place. They didn't come to Silicon Valley to change the world just to have to convince a large group of lawmakers (or worse, administrative bureaucrats) to put in place some particular piece of legislation.

They came here to actually innovate.

And this is not to say -- as some people like to -- that the way to treat policymakers is to ignore them, or just tell them to get out of the way. Rather, we think that we can create the best of all worlds by getting entrepreneurs and technologists and innovators to do what the do best and that means coming up with innovative policy ideas that don't necessarily involve waiting for policymakers to create some sort of regulation.

We see examples of this innovative "policy without policymakers" all the time -- and it's what helped inspire the creation of Copia in the first place. One example: fifteen years ago, a group of entrepreneurs, academics, lawyers and activists realized that copyright law and the internet did not mix. And, at the same time, they knew that there was no way Congress would get around to real copyright reform that fixed that. So they built a very innovative solution: Creative Commons. It didn't fix all the problems, but it did create a really useful tool that is widespread today: a very simple licensing mechanism that encouraged content creators to freely and easily license their works, and that allowed the better sharing of information. It has had a profound effect on how content is shared online today -- and it did not require Congress to do anything.

Similar examples are found with things like Twitter's Innovator's Patent Agreement that prevents any of Twitter's patents from being used for trolling. Or the recent "license on transfer" (LOT) program that a bunch of tech companies came up with a year ago.

Sure, in the long run, having good copyright or patent reform would help even more, but that clearly wasn't happening in the short run, so innovators did what they do best: they innovated solutions to help out in the meantime.

Copia's main focus is on bringing together innovators, entrepreneurs, and technologists and looking at the big opportunities and challenges they face -- and looking for ways to innovate solutions that don't require lobbying and waiting around for policymakers to negotiate and bicker and trade. Instead, we're focused on getting actual stuff done -- creating useful programs that can accomplish things today.

That doesn't mean we'll sit out legislative or policy debates. We'll still be actively involved in those, and making sure that our members are well aware of what's happening. But we'll let the existing trade groups, activists and lobbyists focus on those battles most of the time. We're going to keep looking for ways that we can actually get stuff done in a way that Silicon Valley appreciates: by innovating, rather than waiting for someone to give us permission.

Filed Under: copia, hacking, innovation, lobbying, policy
Companies: copia