The Washington Post has relaunched their own Congressional vote tracker, but now you can subscribe to your Representative's votes via RSS.

I definitely recommend you check it out.

Just got word that the Copyright Modernization Act died in committee today. Alex Curtis from Public Knowledge has a report from Capitol Hill:

This week, [CMA] actually came up and Rep. Lamar Smith, Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, who introduced the bill was recognized to make a statement. In it, he said he had counted heads in the committee and was confident that he had the votes for successful passage, but was concerned that the bill may be set for difficult passage out of the House and Senate. He said he’d prefer to start anew next year. Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner rhetorically asked if that was an indication that Smith wanted to withdraw the bill from markup consideration, and then made is so.

A collective sigh of relief was let out from a few rows of audience, comprised of consumer device manufacturers and some service providers.

Well done everyone. Here is concrete proof that your phone calls and emails work. We fought back one of the worst information policy bill to see Congress in years. But we can't rest on our laurels, we still have a little bit of time before Congress goes back into recess for the November elections and there is the lame duck session after the elections.

Today, IBM introduced their own measures to reform the patent process. CNET has the story:

The policy, being announced today, includes standards like clearly identifying the corporate ownership of patents, to avoid filings that cloak authorship under the name of an individual or dummy company. It also asserts that so-called business methods alone--broad descriptions of ideas, without technical specifics--should not be patentable.

This is a huge step in the right direction. For more than a decade, IBM has lead each year in number of patents awarded. This is as big as the Hollywood cartels giving up on DRM. CNET quotes IBM's Samuel J. Palmisano:

"The larger picture here is that intellectual property is the crucial capital in a global knowledge economy.... If you need a dozen lawyers involved every time you want to do something, it's going to be a huge barrier. We need to make sure that intellectual property is not used as a barrier to growth in the future."

What Palmisano is describing is the innovation tax in action. If IBM is struggling under the weight of the innovation tax imagine what a smaller start up must face. The patent process is backwards and broken. Other tech companies have started to look at the problem, but IBM is taking action.

This weekend I had the chance to see 'This Film is Not Yet Rated' by documentary filmmaker Dick Kirby. You might remember the slight controversy about the MPAA making unauthorized copies of the film after Kirby explicitly said that no copied were allowed to be made.

I love cinema. There was a point in my life that I was going to the theaters two or three times a week to see a different film. It didn't really matter how good or bad the film was, I wanted to see as many as possible. That's why I got involved with the fight for information policy. As much as I love cinema, I hate having how and when I watch a film dictated to me by a cartel locked behind a gate in Encino California. This unelected, unrepresentative, and unaccountable group of less than a dozen people decide for the entire country what is and is not acceptable viewing.

I understand the need to have some sort of guide to inform parents and other people sensitive to adult themes about the content of a film beforehand, but because of the vertical monopoly on film, from development to distribution any film rated NC-17 is dead on arrival. I'm not going to recount all the stories from film makers about how their films were censored or how independent film makers without a major studio backing them up have no chance of getting a 'R' rating. If This Film is Not Yet Rated is not playing in your area, and if you're not living in a large city with an independent movie theater you're out of luck as this film is not rated, you can see a quick history of the MPAA's censorship and control of the movie industry.

While the film's main theme is film making, it delves into the history of the MPAA, the rating scheme, and even how the Hollywood cartels have abused their clout to impose an innovation tax by buying terrible legislation. Even geek matinee idol Prof. Lawrence Lessig is featured. The film catalogs all the abuses of power going back to using the Red Scare to bust the creative unions that were forming. Quickly the Hollywood cartels realized that to survive they needed the blessings of Washington.

Setting a trend that continues to this day, the MPAA hired a political hack. Jack Valenti was a special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson. You can see Valenti hiding in this famous photo of Johnson being sworn in. He's the head poking out on the far left. Valenti was tapped to head the MPAA and fight off government censorship, but also to ensure that the Hollywood cartels' control continued in perpetuity.

Since then, the MPAA has had perhaps the most successful lobbying effort ever. Until recently every single piece of legislation that the MPAA wanted was passed quickly and without scrutiny regardless of the political party that was in power. From the Mickey Mouse Protection Act to the DMCA Valenti's pals in Congress didn't ask questions.

The most telling sequence from the film is Valtenti, nearing the end of his reign, tearing up as he thanks his friends in Congress. He mentions one by name for his dedication to the Hollywood cartels' cause, Senator Ted Stevens. Stevens as you may remember is author of the omnibus communication bill that not only guts the internet, but forces technology mandates in the form of the Broadcast and Audio Flags. Cinema, as Jean-Luc Godard noted, is the truth 24 times per second. That has never been more true than this section of the film. Valenti's passion for his partners in Congress is raw, deep, and extremely telling. It's a man that dedicated his life to serving the MPAA and all he has left is the hollow friendship of politicians.

If you live in a city that is showing This Film is Not Yet Rated, I strongly recommend taking the time to see it. I should point out that the film contains very graphic depictions of sex, violence, and language. If that's not your cup of tea, you might want to pass on it.

What is CMA?

CMA is the Copyright Modernization Act of 2006. It includes all the language that S1RA had requiring incidental copies of internet streams to be licensed. To make the bill more palatable, it now includes the Orphan Works Act.

Why is the S1RA section of the CMA bad?

It has a laudable goal of bringing mechanical licensing into the 21st century, but in doing so changes the balance of fair use. The biggest issue is how CMA deals with "incidental copies." Right now, incidental copies like buffers of internet radio stations do not need to be licensed because they fall under fair use. In order to have a quality stream, the file needs to be temporarily copied, or "cached." CMA would, for the first time, define these incidental copies as licensable and allow copyright holders to charge for them. CMA will also require a separate license of satellite radio if the receiver can time shift the content making an end run around the Audio Home Recording Act that explicitly allows recording of radio for personal use.

Isn’t the Orphan Works portion of CMA a good thing?

Yes, the Orphan Works Act is a needed piece of legislation that frees artists from fear of a long dormant copyright holder extorting them. However, the S1RA portion of CMA is unacceptable and should be excised.

How does CMA impact me as a consumer?

CMA will have a significant impact on current and future consumer devices. With the time-shifting provisions of CMA, satellite radio will would be subject huge new fees. If incidental copies like buffers are licensable, Tivo would be in big trouble. They don’t currently need a license to time shift TV, but with the CMA on the books, Tivo could be forced to get a license for their live TV buffer. That could be all that is needed by the cable companies to squeeze Tivo out of the PVR market.

Who else opposes S1RA?

Over a dozen of companies, non profits, and trade organizations wrote Congresses to express their opposition to S1RA. The letter can be found here (PDF), but here is the list that signed on:

ATI Technologies

Consumer Electronics Association

Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Entercom Communications Corp

Home Recording Rights Coalition

National Association of Broadcasters

Neuros Technology

Public Knowledge

RadioShack Corporation

Salem Communications Corp.

Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.

XM Satellite Radio Inc.

I made tons of phone calls about S1RA before, has my work done anything?

Absolutely!

This bill was supposed to sail right through Congress without a fight. Your phone calls and letters let everyone in Congress know that S1RA is controversial and requires serious amendments.

In order to pacify the opposition to S1RA Congress included the Orphan Works Act which is strongly opposed by Big Copyright.