Hollywood Nervous About Kagan's Fair Use Views 239
Of the many commentaries and analyses springing up about Obama's Supreme Court nominee, this community might be most interested in one from the Hollywood Reporter. Reader Hugh Pickens notes that Hollywood may have reason to be nervous about the nomination of Elena Kagan to be the next US Supreme Court justice. "As dean of Harvard Law School from 2003 to 2009, Kagan was instrumental in beefing up the school's Berkman Center for Internet & Society by recruiting Lawrence Lessig and others who take a strongly liberal position on fair use in copyright disputes. And Kagan got an opportunity to showcase her feelings on intellectual property when the US Supreme Court asked her, as US Solicitor General, to weigh in on the big Cablevision case. 'After Cablevision announced in 2006 that it would allow subscribers to store TV programs on the cable operator's computer servers instead of on a hard-top box, Hollywood studios went nuts, predicting that the days of licensing on-demand content would be over,' writes Gardner. Kagan's brief compared remote-storage DVRs to VCRs (PDF), brought up the Sony/Betamax case, and lightly slapped Cablevision on the wrist for not making fair use a bigger issue. 'It sounds to us like Kagan would love the Court to determine when customers have a fair-use right to copy, which should cheer those on the copy-left at the EFF, and worry many in the entertainment industry.' On the minus side, Kagan has surrounded herself with entertainment industry advocates in the Justice Department."
Bad on software patents (Score:4, Informative)
Her name is on the Bilski brief submitted by the Obama administration:
No extant field of technology or industry--including software and diagnostic methods, the two fields addressed by numerous amici--is wholly excluded from patent protection under that approach;
Re:Bad on software patents (Score:2, Informative)
That's her acting in capacity as Solicitor General, which doesn't really count. She's required to argue in favor of all current laws in that position, regardless of personal beliefs.
Is this Groundhog Day or something? We run through this every time we talk about any administration's Solicitor General.
Good for Nerds, I think. (Score:5, Informative)
A great HuffPo Piece [huffingtonpost.com] by none other than Lawrence Lessig, Mr. Creative Commons himself.
Re:And I'M nervous about Kagan's fair-use views... (Score:5, Informative)
Elena Kagan doesn't run the Justice Department, Attorney General Eric Holder does.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
But if neither dominant party thinks she's toeing the line enough then that's _exactly_ the kind of person I want on the Supreme Court.
Your logic is broken. I presume neither party would like bin Laden, but I don't think that would make him a good nomination. Have you heard why people don't like her? Here's some of her thoughts on the first amendment [firstamendmentcenter.org]:
Someone who feels that freedom of speech is overrated - spare me the "fire! in a theater" exceptions we already know about - is not someone who I want deciding freedom of speech cases.
She also argued [reason.com] that prosecutors who deliberately manufacture evidence to convict (by definition) innocent people should not be civilly liable for their actions. I don't have great hopes that she'd side with individuals when it most matters.
It seems like there's something for everyone to dislike about Kagan, unless you're already a person in power and seeking to extend your powers. Then she'd be the woman for the job.
Re:liberal? (Score:3, Informative)
liberal –adjective
1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
2. (often initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
3. of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism.
4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression: a liberal policy toward dissident artists and writers.
6. of or pertaining to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.
7. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant: a liberal attitude toward foreigners.
8. open-minded or tolerant, esp. free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.
9. characterized by generosity and willingness to give in large amounts: a liberal donor.
10. given freely or abundantly; generous: a liberal donation.
11. not strict or rigorous; free; not literal: a liberal interpretation of a rule.
12. of, pertaining to, or based on the liberal arts.
13. of, pertaining to, or befitting a freeman.
Re:Can we mark TFA as troll? (Score:5, Informative)
SCOTUSBlog posted a nice, hysteria-free overview [scotusblog.com] of Kagan's career a few days ago. It's well worth a read, and the authors seem to know a thing or two about the courts (unlike most reporters and pundits who have been covering the story).
If you read up on her career, you'll see that she has a great deal of respect for existing precedent, and doesn't seem to have allowed her own personal opinions to interfere with her past jobs.
Summary totally misguided; read Glenn Greenwald (Score:5, Informative)
2) As the Solicitor General, you are a lawyer for the government. You argue their cases. We should not confuse positions she took as the Solicitor General with her own personal opinions on the cases.
If anyone wants the real story on Kagan (she's woefully unprepared for the Supreme Court) please read what Glenn Greenwald has recently been writing about her http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/13/kagan [salon.com] and a debate yesterday http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/10/progressives_divided_over_obamas_nomination_of [democracynow.org]
Re:your point is absurd (Score:3, Informative)
every large overall class has started out as a minor subclass.
Pleanty of currently available tech can make people dead yet is accepted because of it's benefits.
Pleanty of old tech if it were developed today would be stopped in it's tracks before it's benefits could be shown.
I know academics who work in drug trials who just love to point out that penecilin would almost certainly not even make it through the early stages of trial were it invented today because so many people are severly alergic to it.
It would almost certainly cause some severe reaction in some of first test subject and the plug would be pulled before they ever got to the stage of testing it on people who are actually sick.
It would be considered a failed project and the world would miss out on it and it's derivatives.
Re:Finally (Score:1, Informative)
What, her stance on fabricating evidence to wrongfully imprison people wasn't "tech" enough for you? That's some nerd stuff right there.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/05/nation/la-na-court-framed5-2010jan05 [latimes.com]
http://reason.com/archives/2009/09/28/the-infallible-prosecutor [reason.com]
http://www.justice.gov/osg/briefs/2009/3mer/1ami/2008-1065.mer.ami.html [justice.gov]
Re:there will always be a legitimate war on drugs (Score:2, Informative)
No. They aren't. The destruction of freedom wrought by the War on (Some) Drugs is far, far worse than the effects of any drug.
No, it doesn't. Look at all the cocaine and opiate addicts and users who have made their mark on the arts and sciences: Freud, Halsted [druglibrary.org] (the "father of modern surgery"), Belushi, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Jules Verne, Popes Leo XIII and Pius X, President McKinley [time.com], Robin Williams, Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, Percy Shelly, Cole Porter, Richard Pryor...I could go on and on.
Which is not to say that cocaine and opiate use are healthy choices or that I'm endorsing them; only that drug prohibition magnifies the negative effects of drug use, creates a violent black market, is corrosive to liberty, and anyone who favors it is either ignorant, stupid, or wicked.
So, look: you're simply ignorant and wrong about drugs and their effects. And yet you're willing to point guns at people and lock them in cages to control their behavior. You should be ashamed.