Hiawatha Bray is being really dumb, again (he's well known for that).
Hiawatha Bray
[from
For geeks, it's a big misunderstanding]
Outlawing plainly criminal activity seems a worthy use of a senator's time. But this bill, in the view of Hatch's critics, would pretty much end technological innovation in America. Indeed, they predict that Hatch's bill would ban digital music players, outlaw home videotaping, and force cats and dogs to sleep together. Well, never mind that last bit. But you get the idea. This bill is bad -- really bad. Or so its opponents say.
Except that it isn't illegal: that's why Hatch is trying to pass a new bill. If it were already illegal, them we could simply enforce the law. This confusion is the whole point of the Hatch PR effort. And it is seems to have lulled the gullible Bray to sleep.
He goes on to at least admit that Hatch et al are unscrupulously using children as a foil for their real agenda, which is music and movie company profits:
There's some cause for all of the hostility.
Hatch and a bipartisan band of cosponsors have touted the legislation with a greasy, disingenuous claim that it's about protecting America's children, and not the record industry's profits.
But then Bray goes off the tracks again, arguing that the geeks that are screaming that the INDUCE act will limit innnovation are wacky. He waves his hand at the iPod example: iPods could be deemed illegal under INDUCE since they lead us to illegally copy music. The average person cannot acquire 10,000 songs legally, after all. And his assertion that the Business Software Alliance supports INDUCE, and therefore the high tech and innovation crowd shoudl too -- Not!
While he says nothing specifically about the potential of the Act to end peer-to-peer instant messaging or related benign purposes, he does close with this:
But what are the substantial legitimate uses for Grokster or Morpheus or Kazaa? Virtually none. The file-swapping programs are used almost exclusively by thieves, who rob recording artists of billions every year. Shed no tears for them. Weep instead for poor Orrin -- not a bad fellow, but misunderstood.
But of course, the fact that the Act is seeking to make an entire class of technology illegal in order to quash illegal file sharing is not explicitly acknowledged.
This guy is nuts, and with a pulpit like the Boston Globe to shout out from, way too many people are going to hear this muddied and reactionary drivel.
Hatch's PR blitz has gaffed a whale, here.
[Pointer from Copyfight]
1. Liz Milborn on September 5, 2004 05:45 AM writes...
You know what we need, Hobbes? We need an attitude. Yeah, you can't be cool
Permalink to Commentif you don't have an attitude. -- Calvin
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