the day in DC (Lessig Blog)

the day in DC

June 25, 2003 4:49 PM - comments (11)

It was a great day in DC.

Public Knowledge had arranged the meetings, with members and their staff from both sides of Congress, and both sides of the isle. We met with the staffs of Senators Cantwell, McCain and Leahy, then met with Congressman Cannon and Boucher. And -- at her request -- we met with Congresswoman Bono.

It was a strongly positive meeting with everyone, though of course Congresswoman Bono started most skeptically. By the end, however, she demonstrated a genuine openness to the issue, and a willingness to consider the proposal. It is of course very easy to demonize the otherside. But after listening to her talk about both this and the Sonny Bono Act, her motivations seemed quite genuinely to be about securing to artists continued reward from creativity. Not a bad motivation, all things considered, if we can balance it with protection of the public domain.

Others began closer to where we were, and so we ended even closer to where we wanted them to be. Congressman Boucher agreed to join as a sponsor -- so at least three good souls in DC.

The best part, of course, was Congresswoman Lofgren's press conference, announcing the bill that she and Congressman Doolittle will introduce, and explaining the reasons. She gets it, and she is powerful and right in her explanation. We owe her a great deal.

Indeed, I had that thought about everyone we met today. This was a strange day of feeling Congress sometimes somehow might work. It's very early, and we have yet to weather the criticism and opposition. And of course, if money lines on this one, we will not prevail. But every, from Members to staff, took this as seriously as anyone could hope. Let's see what happens.

One point was clear however: The work of the petition was extremely important. At least one Member indicated to me that he/she had been made aware of this issue by someone signing the petition. Another member indicated they had heard from people who had signed the petition. The more of this we can build, the more likely it is that we can build enough support to prevail.

Stay tuned for the next stages. But thanks to Public Knowledge, and the 15k+, who have helped carry this idea one step closer to reality.

Posted by Lawrence Lessig on June 25, 2003 4:49 PM | Permalink

Comments (11)

June 25, 2003 5:16 PM Brian Flemming:

Congratulations on the breakthrough! I called Congresswoman Lofgren's office, (202) 225-3072, and Congressman Doolittle's, (202) 225-2511, to add my voice to the gratitude I hope they're getting a lot of.

Amazing to hear about Congresswoman Bono's reaction. You're right--it is easy to demonize the other side. (Then again, "forever minus a day...")

Hope this signals a great turn for the movement.

June 25, 2003 5:26 PM Lessig:

Brian, thanks for calling. That is a great idea!

June 25, 2003 9:48 PM Chris Tar:

Just wanted to mention that besides supporting this bill, Congresswoman Lofgren gives her official support for Howard Dean's Presidential Candidacy on his blog which you mentioned down below in YOUR blog...

June 26, 2003 12:19 AM Jonathan:

That's great news! And I hope that you try to get in touch with the Howard Dean people--I have been following his campaign and I haven't seen any specific stances of his on technological issues but he seems to be an advocate for the common person and I imagine he would be very sympathetic to your stances on the public domain and on technology, if you discussed them. I have great hopes for both of your campaigns and I can only imagine the greatness the two of you could do by joining forces!

June 26, 2003 1:13 AM skywalkjw:

I'd first like to thank Professor Lessig for housing such an informative arena for the passing of information to us "cannon fodder" for the recording industry. I have a few questions/statements (some rhetorical). If anyone could help me understand someone of this or someone (Prof. Lessig or one of his "underlings") could comment preferably, that would be greatly obliged.

1. It's the mega servers that will get pressed by legal action first or at least that's how I'm "translating" the information transmitted publicly.
2. The odds of the recording industry actually receiving damages is highly unlikely, bc someone could space their payments out over time thus not jumpstarting the supposed "flagging sales" of the industry during our economic woes and the absolute alienation of the consumers by the industry or something like what happened to Jesse Jordan will occur where they just confiscated his saved up "lunch money" or life savings...
3. The media companies "scaring" ppl (CNN and other news coporations) own/are owned/or are closely affiliated with record labels so of course they're attempting to cause a state of paranoia.
4. Code 431.322.12 of the Internet Privacy Act signed by Bill Clinton has certain guidelines that prohibit someone from monitoring someone and doing certain things without a warrant.(I don't know how much actual legal clout this has...)
5. The companies can't say "the artists suffer the most" because the companies abuse the artists and they only receive about 12% of the revenues according to a CNN.com chart(There is plenty of money to be made at concerts because if you have a good show, ppl will pay money to go, id est the 1000$ madonna and michael jackson concert tickets will always have a buyer...)
6. They can't prove a file is a file on a PC (it might be labeled incorrectly, i suppose they could download it...but that makes them hypocrites), you can also plead the 5th amendment if they ask you to produce information that is self-incriminating (the files which are the only proof, so you can't produce them yourself...a big fuss was made over this in the Whitewater probe pertaining to Hubbell not wanting/having to produce documents that held incriminating evidence...I don't know...)
7. Age old argument of who is to say that you aren't using it for yourself or archiving a personal database, and the ppl downloading aren't downloading a double of the copy they have and own.
8. There is a flood of ppl doing it, if they prosecuted everyone, there would be a serious logjam in the court system of the U.S. This is just like putting gum in a large crack on a face of the hoover dam.
9. This will seriously disenfranchise the private recording industry and ppl will just move more towards indie music(or they'll just cover the band and make the cover open for sharing...) These prosecutions can be assimilated to that of chopping of the head of a hydra (more will pop up in place...)
10. Not all the lobbyists are clean. If you were to search their PC's and all the government officials', they'd sing a diff. tune. Another valid point is what will they do not "if", but when their very own kids get caught.

June 26, 2003 5:32 AM Michael Chermside:

So, are there any particular things that I can do (people to call, etc) to support this bill? Ideally, I'd like to have the bill's congressional sponsors say when is the politically "right" time to speak up (and to whom) in order to have the most chance of helping this towards actual passage.

June 26, 2003 6:59 AM Timothy R. Phillips:

Maybe Congresswoman Bono has truly modified her views on copyright to account for the public interest more than it was accounted for in the statements she made in 1998. Or maybe Congresswoman Bono sees this bill as a bone that she can throw to us dogs to keep us quiet. In any case we must remember in the true logic of copyright it is the copyright industries who should be the dogs groveling at the public's table, not the public at the industries'. This bill, if enacted, will allow to lapse after 50 years those copyrights in which their owners have no interest. But it is from the lapse of copyright in works which have commercial value that the public gains the most immediate benefit, in the form of competing editions. In the same way, if an antibiotic were to remain under patent until many microbes had become resistant to it, the lapse of the patent, and the resulting lower prices, would benefit the public less than if the patent had expired during the time of the antibiotic's greatest potency. So even if this bill is enacted (and that happy outcome is by no means assured) we should remember that there are reasons for moderating the term of copyright in valuable works just as there are for moderating the term of copyright in neglected works.

June 26, 2003 7:18 AM Dana Powers:

I speak only for myself here, skywalkjw, but I have signed the petition that is at the root of this thread and, although it addresses copyright policy, it is not relevant to the legal action you are asking about - the multiple RIAA suits against individual music file traders. Personally, I am strongly in support of copyright reform, but I also believe, as I'm sure many others do as well, that the RIAA has every right to bring suit against individuals who distribute copyrighted music files without permission. Many in the 'copyright reform' camp are dissappointed with the extent to which the RIAA (and others) try to incriminate technology itself (search engines, p2p networks, etc) as opposed to the individuals that misuse it; however, few (if any) of them also believe that copyright owners should not have some sort of recourse against unauthorized reproduction or use.

I am very glad to hear that the Eldred Act is making some headway on the hill. I'm sure this pleases you, Larry, to no end, as it pleases the many thousands that have lent their signature to the cause. Great news!

June 26, 2003 9:16 AM Kaa:

"her [Bono] motivations seemed quite genuinely to be about securing to artists continued reward from creativity."

Color me skeptical. Politicians dislike pissing off people and would very much like to appear to be on everyone's side at the same time. Of course she was nice to you. But I bet she's nicer to Rosen and Valenti. The current situation is, basically, a power struggle, and she's definitely in the other camp.

"This was a strange day of feeling Congress sometimes somehow might work."

Err... you know that Washington, DC is permanently submerged in a strong reality-distortion field? Thankfully the effects dissipate after a few days away from that city...

Sorry for negativity, but the congresscritters' record on doing reasonable things lately isn't all that good...

June 27, 2003 12:34 AM Matthew Cox:

I know it's only a semi-answer to one of your questions, skywalkjw, but in a recent case, a court ruled that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy once you share files or a directory...if you are opening it up for anyone in the system to browse and download from, you are essentially waiving your right to privacy in this matter.

I don't like what the RIAA is doing any more than they like what I am doing, but the anger and the outrage, for the most part, is being directed at the wrong outlets. The laws currently governing this matter give the RIAA the right to do exactly what they are doing, and there's no real point to getting all hot and bothered at them. The debate and the activism should be more properly funneled where it has a chance of being effective - at changing the rules of the game. Until then, I've removed the share tag from my music directory -- I value my lunch and will pick and choose the battles, in order to maximize the potential for success.

Viva La P2P!

July 9, 2003 1:36 AM Dishman:

Reflecting on Eldred...
I'd add another requirement for retaining copyright:
The copyright holder must register and preserve at least one copy (physical or digital) of the work.
There would have to be some mechanism for making it available to the public domain, either through the Library of Congress or through the former copyright holder.
This makes more sense to me than a fee.
The copyright holder would be saying "I believe this piece of history is worth preserving, so I will preserve it". Otherwise, the copyright holder would be required to step aside and let the public domain make that decision.