FTC Staff Discuss a Tax on Electronics To Support the News Business

dptalia links to this piece describing a staff discussion draft from the Federal Trade Commission, writing "The FTC is concerned about the death of the 'news.' Specifically newspapers. Rather than look to how old media models can be adapted to the Internet, they instead suggest taxing consumer electronics to support a huge newspaper bailout. Additionally, they suggest making facts 'proprietary' and allowing news organizations to copyright them." Note, though, "The good news in all this is that the FTC's bureaucrats try hard to recommend little. They just discuss. And much of what the agency staff ponders are political impossibilities."

Re:Let them Die

[oodaloop]

What are you, some kind of capitalist?

I don't see anything wrong with this

[Pojut]

Go ahead, "copyright" your investigated information. Good luck suing the hundreds of thousands of blogs and websites that will still link to your info. And besides, if they provide a link to the news company's website as a way to cite a source (just like I do with my own webpage when I post about content I have read elsewhere), what's the problem? You still get credit, you still get the traffic.

But will they also bail out the typewriter makers?

[Michael_gr]

I mean, it's like totally unfair that PC manufacturers pulled the rug from under the typewriter business. I propose a tax on... let's see... yes! deodorants! and, uhhm, pipe wrenches! to save the typewriter business. And the monk scribes that used to copy books before that horrid man Gutenberg took their jobs away, they deserve some recompense. Let's tax... exotic pets.

Perfectly understandable

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama doesn't want the New York Times to go under. By 2012, they'll be the only ones left who are stupid enough to vote for him again.

Re:No bailout for newspapers

[schon]

Goddammit - why should newspapers have to change to suit the internet? Newspapers were here first! It's not fair - the internet should be the one that has to change!

(Isn't that the rationale of a four-year-old?)

Re:Bail Me Out Please

[Em Emalb]

hoe often

Words of wisdom, my brotha, words of wisdom.

Re:Start laughing now...

[Shikaku]

That's dangerous and ridiculous to be able to copyright facts.

People have 4 fingers and 1 thumb on each hand.

Now nobody can report that anywhere! MWAHAHAHAHA.

Re:Let them Die

[MozeeToby]

Choice quote:

The most infamous of the Red Flag Laws was enacted in Pennsylvania circa 1896, when Quaker legislators unanimously passed a bill through both houses of the state legislature, which would require all motorists piloting their "horseless carriages", upon chance encounters with cattle or livestock to (1) immediately stop the vehicle, (2) "immediately and as rapidly as possible... disassemble the automobile," and (3) "conceal the various components out of sight, behind nearby bushes" until equestrian or livestock is sufficiently pacified.

Wait... what did they think was going to happen? The horses were going to freak out upon seeing a carriage with no horse in front of it?

Re:Let them Die

[elrous0]

I just got a mental image of a horse looking over at his fellow horse and saying "They took yer job!"