Seen on RedState this week: 10 questions for Obama’s nominee to chair FCC. It doesn’t sound like his answers are all great, which is in keeping with this adminstration’s inability to follow through with good spectrum policy.
In video games, this Microsoft announcement means both more and less than it’s made out to be. Yes, they are backing off on some of the mandatory online stuff, and removing whole features (like trading digital games) in order to respond to Sony. But they’re not promising no DRM, and in fact they just promised no selling of digital copies. However what they did do is 1-up Sony, who has left used game restrictions to publishers.
No, no, no, do not pass the Lofgren bill. Using or hijacking other people’s computing resources without permission to use them for your purposes, that should be a crime. If I accidentally leave my car unlocked, and you come swipe it, we don’t say “Oh well, you should have been more careful,” and let you off without penalty.
Aaron Swartz wanted to be the martyr. He made himself one. He only faced years in prison because he chose it. Instead of pleading guilty, he wanted a big, showy trial. Changing the law because of that person is just ridiculous and anti-property rights.
Crime Watch: Lulzsec bigshot gets taken down in Australia, and an Anonymous gang member is on trial for multiple rape at an Occupy event. Bad week for anarchists. Heh.
Democrats tuning their rhetoric for the moment: IMMEDIATE ACTION needed on Do Not Track, even as it’s taken YEARS to do anything on outdated ECPA email rules which now may include a warning requirement, and it wasn’t even Jay Rockefeller who got off his tail to get that done.
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So even as Eric Holder is pushing back against the Weekend at Bernies-ification of Aaron Swartz, the man who committed premeditated crimes (as the puppet on the strings of the callous Larry Lessig, perhaps?), was caught, and was getting prosecuted for his high-profile sabotage of one of America’s leading academic institutions. It’s rare that you’ll see writers at RedState agree with that guy, but Moe is pushing back against the excesses of the Swartz defenders as well, and I pretty much agree with Moe.
Guys, if you want to push an anarchic anti-copyright agenda, do so on its own merits, as Joe Karaganis does. Don’t use the corpse of a suicide to do so.
There is room for IP reform in America, with excesses like the Sonny Bono act in the picture, and odd situations where Frito Lay can use patent and trade dress, two distinct concepts, to attack the same competitor. But the Swartz fan club is as auto-discrediting as the Sacco and Vanzetti crowd ended up being.
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I know, I know. The way that broadcasts travel across state lines, it’s important that some sort of national control step in, because the states can’t do it. But the way the Obama FCC operates, sometimes I wonder if it’s worth all the trouble.
Instead of working to ensure we have the spectrum we need allocated to the purposes we want, The Obama FCC constantly works as a roadblock, earlier against AT&T, and now against Verizon.
This same FCC is also, with apparently no objection from the President, actively and openly stonewalling Chuck Grassley and the Senate in attempts at applying reasonable oversight to the committee.
The FCC has too many secrets and tries to make too many decisions over the private sector. We have to fix this.
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