What's IPac's agenda?
When we founded IPac, we wrote a simple set of principles. We wrote:
We believe that technological innovation and individual creativity are vital to the future of this country. We believe that a prosperous and democratic society depends on freedom for all individuals to pursue scientific invention and artistic expression.
IPac's theme is Innovation Protection and Innovation Promotion. But what do we actually want? If we had our way, what laws would we pass, or not pass?
I have a few ideas, but first, what do you think? If you have ideas for ways IPac can be changing policy to protect and promote innovation?
Here are a few areas to get you thinking:
- Copyright. The DMCA stifles scientific research. Book publishers sue Google over book scanning. Verizon sues Google over YouTube. Disney got copyright terms extended years ago and presumably wants to do it again. The Bush administration just introduced a proposal to impose jail time for "attempted copyright infringement".
- Patents. Verizon sues Vonage. NTP sues RIM. Companies everywhere spend millions to accumulate as many patents as possible in an ongoing arms race.
- Network neutrality. AT&T, BellSouth (now part of AT&T), and Verizon have all stated that they'd love to charge one Web site to load faster than a competitor's. Is this good for innovation?
- Wireless innovation. You can only use phones on a mobile network that the carrier sanctions. Verizon restricts what apps you can install on your phone. Sprint threatens to sue application developers for using the GPS that's already on their phones. The iPhone will only work on Cingular.
- Cable set-top boxes. Cable companies also restrict what devices you can buy to hook up to your cable. TiVo has to go through contortions like "IR blasters" to interoperate with the existing boxes. The CableCARD standard might fix this but cable companies are resisting.
In the coming days I'll go into more detail about each of these. Our end goal is to develop an agenda we can ask Congressional and Presidential candidates to endorse. And your help will make this a better agenda. Comment, or email us at info@ipaction.org.
2 Comments:
For some bizarre reason, network neutrality has become a politicized issue. (The involvement of the ultra-liberal MoveOn.org has only exacerbated that problem, preventing conservative-leaning politicians from joining the fight on the side of the consumer.) It also has the most recognition as an issue of concern on Capitol Hill, and has a lot of advocacy groups already working toward it.
So, while I'm a big fan of network neutrality, I'd recommend that IPac put that issue on the back burner and focus first on oppressive copyright laws and the chilling effect on innovation and consumer rights.
I'd like to see IPac have a permanent "mission statement"/agenda/platform that can be pointed or linked to. I don't agree with Barry that it should be narrower than the whole field of IP; if we want to concentrate effort on certain parts of it, a broad mission statement doesn't stand in the way of doing that, IMO.
Here are things I would put in, in no particular order.
1. All IP laws infringe freedom of speech. Therefore they should be subject to strict scrutiny, limiting IP-holders' rights to only what serves the purpose stated in the Constitution: "to promote the progress of the useful arts and sciences" (and implicitly, getting the results into the hands of the public).
2. Give examples of how too-strong copyrights impede that purpose, either by blocking publication of works (such as orphan works) or by blocking creation or publication of useful derived works (improvements on proprietary software, "porting" of software or music to new machines, translations of stories, Bowdlerization, fan fiction).
3. Include attempts by "IP trolls" to unjustifiably extend their legal rights by devious methods (DMCA; clickwrap licenses + UCITA; the NET act; the outrageous misuse of the word "piracy" as a synonym for IP infringement; labeling published material such as the X-Windows manuals "unpublished" to get trade-secret protection; and the "works for hire" provision fraudulently inserted into a law after it was passed, under which the music labels robbed many artists of their rights, which Carly Simon wrote about at salon.com; and of course, the Bill-Gates-funded troll case SCO vs. Linux). The last two items mentioned are great answers to the assertion that authors have an unlimited moral right to control the use of their work.
I agree with Barry that the issue of the big media companies using their clout to stifle free speech (as in the network neutrality issue) is a side issue. However, because most of the abuse in and of over-strong copyrights is being committed by those companies (including the laws which they're paying Congresspeople to enact), I'd like to start a boycott of Hollywood until they give it up.
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