This week Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said that one of her top priorities this year is to ramp up intellectual property rights and "rogue websites" legislation this year. She called on fellow conservatives to join her in this fight.
This is the same representative that introduced a bill earlier this year to gut the FCC's net neutrality rules. The two positions seem at odds with each other if you consider that the conservative mantra is smaller government, less regulation. Apparently, less regulation is only good when it serves the interest of corporations and lobbyist groups you support.
Her call for better intellectual property rights legislation includes the introduction of - you guessed it - more regulations and rules. Speaking this week at the "State of the Net" conference in Washington, DC this week, Blackburn laid out three propositions to deal with intellectual property rights issues (from Ars Technica):
Proposition 1: The ascendant economic sector is the Creative Economy.
Proposition 2: The primary commodity in this economy is intellectual property.
Proposition 3: The Creative Economy thrives online, in what is a unique, prosperous, and until recently free marketplace.
Blackburn also wants patent reform that includes "strict deterrents to infringement," user-controlled privacy legislation, and "rouge website" legislation that deals with questionable websites on the internet offering everything from piracy to knock-off drugs.
That sounds like more government -- not less -- to me.
Source: Ars Technica
Comments
Re: Rep. Blackburn Seeks Stronger IP Laws
"The primary commodity in this economy is intellectual property."
That is just an out and out lie. The primary commodity is the time, effort and skill needed to make creative works, not the works themselves.
"The Creative Economy thrives online, in what is a unique, prosperous, and until recently free marketplace."
That's false too. The creative economy thrives because of the free nature of the internet. Technology has made it far easier to create for the common person than ever has been possible before today. To say that file sharing is bad for the creative economy is like saying its bad for doctors to share notes on a patient's medical history. What she's really saying is that it was "free" as in her financial contributors were in control of who got access to content.
-Greevar
-Greevar
"Paste superficially profound, but utterly meaningless quotation here."
Re: Rep. Blackburn Seeks Stronger IP Laws
Good by fanart and fan made flash animations.
Re: Rep. Blackburn Seeks Stronger IP Laws
site.despair.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/governmentdemotivator.jpg
all i have to say...
Re: Rep. Blackburn Seeks Stronger IP Laws
"The two psoitions seem at odds with each other if you consider that the conservative manta is smaller government, less regulation. Apparently, less regulation is only good when it serves the interest of corporations and lobbyist groups you support."
The conservative mantra is smaller government, less regulation. She simply is ignoring it. She may be a conservative but she is not all conservatives. She is still a politician of which I am always wary.
Instead of the snark, how about encouraging conservatives who truly follow the mantra to contact her and insist she adhere to it? Your audience on this site are not all of your political persuasion, but share with you a love of videogames and the desire to see them enjoy the same freedoms as other forms of expression.
It doesn't seem wise to me to mock them because of the behavior of a politician. And that is how it reads even though it may not have been your intention seeing as the other respondant has jumped in to attack conservatives in general.
Re: Rep. Blackburn Seeks Stronger IP Laws
He was not attacking conservatives just her.
Re: Rep. Blackburn Seeks Stronger IP Laws
I took that into consideration when I said:
"And that is how it reads even though it may not have been your intention seeing as the other respondant has jumped in to attack conservatives in general."
I would ask that you please read to the end of our posts from now on, and if you did, then please comprehend what you read.
Re: Rep. Blackburn Seeks Stronger IP Laws
The problem is, the concervative mantra is not related to concervative behavior, and neither has much to do with actually being concervative. They are conservative flavored progressives... it is a theme but little more.
Re: Rep. Blackburn Seeks Stronger IP Laws
"The two psoitions seem at odds with each other if you consider that the conservative manta is smaller government, less regulation. Apparently, less regulation is only good when it serves the interest of corporations and lobbyist groups you support."
It sounds like you've only just come to realize this. The Conservatives have been this way for decades. They espouse a l'aissez-faire approach when it comes to business, yet insist on forcing religion down our throats, telling women women what they can and can't do with their bodies, telling us who we're allowed to marry, and generally being belligerent when it comes to foreign policy. And now they're trying to codemn Healthcare Reform to the "Death of a Thousand Cuts." (Granted, some of it is flawed, but it's better than nothing and was a start, and it really is starting to benefit those it was designed for).
Meanwhile IP and Fair Use rights continue to slowly be strangled.