Consumer Interest Groups Ask Obama To Stop Appointing RIAA Lawyers

from the good-luck... dept

With the Obama administration appointing a whole bunch of copyright maximalists to various positions (despite an early indication that perhaps he recognized issues with copyright law), a bunch of public interest and consumer interest groups have gotten together to write a letter to Obama, asking him to recognize that he seems to be filling every open slot with a very heavily biased viewpoint which could do significant harm towards innovation. Some of the letter may be inspired by the rumored candidates for the IP Czar position -- all of whom also fall into the copyright maximalist camp. Though, the fact that it's taken Obama so long to appoint this position (upsetting the Senators who wrote the law requiring the position in the first place) suggests (at the very least) he isn't considering this to be a priority.

Still, the EFF also took the opportunity to point out that it seems likely that Obama violated copyright himself, in giving a gift of an iPod filled with music to the Queen of England. It's almost impossible to know whether or not copyright was violated, but that's exactly the problem. Of course, this is likely to be of little concern to the President -- which is itself another problem. Too many people, who have little familiarity with copyright law, simply assume that "copyright is good" and that "more copyright is better," leading to the false belief that those who have a history twisting copyright to their own advantage are the best positioned to speak on copyright policy. That's regulatory capture at its finest -- something the Obama administration had claimed it was trying to avoid. Obviously, there are more important things for Obama to be focused on, but relying so heavily on copyright maximalists who have benefited from distorting the purpose of copyright is quite troubling.

Filed Under: copyright, intellectual property, ipod, obama, queen of england, riaa