GOP Study Committee Director Disowns Brief Attacking Current IP Law 176
cervesaebraciator writes "Saturday an article was featured on Slashdot which expressed some hope, if just a fool's hope, that a recent Republican Study Committee Brief could be a sign of broader national discussion about the value of current copyright law. When one sees such progress, credit is deservedly given. Unfortunately, others in Washington did not perhaps see this as worthy of praise. The committee's executive director, Paul Teller, sent a memo today disavowing the earlier pro-copyright reform brief. From the memo: 'Yesterday you received a Policy Brief or [sic] copyright law that was published without adequate review within the RSC and failed to meet that standard. Copyright reform would have far-reaching impacts, so it is incredibly important that it be approached with all facts and viewpoints in hand.' People who live in districts such as Ohio's 4th would do well to send letters of support to those who crafted the original brief. I cannot imagine party leadership will be happy with so radical a suggestion as granting copyright protection for the limited times needed to promote the progress of science and useful arts."
Translation (Score:3, Funny)
Yesterday you received a Policy Brief of copyright law that was published without adequate scrubbing of any truth or fact the RSC sets as a standard for supporting, so I'm disavowing the brief after the fact.
Copyright reform could severely cut into campaign contributions--contributions that amount to little more than kick backs from rent seekers over the economically unsound practices that the Policy Brief spells out--, so it's incredibly important that we allow the copyright industry to present "facts" and present their "viewpoints" to counter anything that the brief lays out. I mean, sure, we don't do the same thing when it comes to climate research or currently illegal drug studies. But, we really don't want to fiddle around with the status quo and upset our power base. I mean, did you really thing think we were any less in bed with Hollywood than the Democrats? We'll gladly take their money; we just wish they were less gay or liberal or whatever.
PS - I think we all saw this coming. :/
Re:MAFIAA popped the trial balloon. (Score:5, Funny)
(I'm confused as to whether the dollar signs indicate bribery or that $facts and $viewpoints are variables in a Perl/PHP script. :P )
Re:At least it's out there (Score:3, Funny)
So just sign the letters as Michael Moore?
Re:MAFIAA popped the trial balloon. (Score:1, Funny)
That's obvious. Both. Or do you really think Perl/PHP scripts work because they're computational sound?