E-books, Obama-Biden and Prohibition: Any hope of educating the Dems about anti-consumer laws like Bono and the DMCA?

Draconian U.S. copyright law is like Prohibition, turning the honest e-book-lovers into criminals.

But could E life could improve in those respects under Barack Obama and Joseph Biden?

I’m gloomy but will argue that they might change their minds if they considered the true impact of copyright law on job-creation and -preservation—a key Democratic Party issue.

Yes, this post is a bit U.S.-centric. But TeleBloggers everywhere should still pay attention. America, by way of trade negotiations, is the world’s leading exporter of anti-consumer, anti-school copyright laws.

Clinton-Gore mistakes

First some history. Clinton-Gore policies in many ways were catnip for the Internet boosters. The White House encouraged schools and libraries to wire up. And everyone should be grateful to Al Gore for pushing the idea of Net neutrality. Gore, in fact, while not the inventor of the Net, was a constant advocate from Day One and even envisioned books from the Library of Congress going online.

But to its shame, the Clinton White House backed Hollywood-bought laws like the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act—and of course the DMCA. Thanks to the latter, the typical consumer can’t legally break DRM even for legitimate purposes such as moving "protected" e-books from one format to another. Consider the abuses that companies like Amazon have piled on consumers who thought they would enjoy reliable access to DRMed e-books in proprietary formats. Meanwhile the real pirates can effortlessly scan paper books or break "protection" on DVDs. Just look at the rip-offs of Harry Potter books.

In many ways DRM is better at pampering powerful commercial interests than protecting intellectual property rights and the welfare of society as a whole. Although anti-piracy, I’m just as vehemently anti-DRM. Simply put, the current DMCA-DRM combo is like Prohibition, turning moral, law-abiding people into criminals (first image is of a liquor bust in Colorado). DRM may even encourage "piracy" because it encumbers legally purchased e-books and other digital merchandise with restrictions missing from the illegal variety. And as I’ll note, the Draconian copyright laws can hurt job creation.

Low expectations for Obama-Biden on the copyright front: Can we change this?

So will we suffer similar copy-related disappointments from an Obama-Biden administration? I’m voting for them for many reasons, one of them being that John McCain‘s people would be worse on copyright matters. And of course I expect Obama-Biden to be far, far more sensitive to Net-related civil liberties issues. But, yes, on copyright issues, I’m still a pessimist. I can’t exactly recall Obama speaking out against the Hollywood copyright interests lately.

As for Joe Biden, we should be especially wary due to his record on the Senate Judiciary committee, which deals with copyright matters. Any possibility of educating him and Obama? Specific ideas? My current impression, based on the past, is that Biden loves DMCAish laws.

DMCA booster

In fact, in an L.A. Times op-ed on piracy, he wrote: "The U.S. demonstrated its leadership in 1997 when Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the No Electronic Theft and the Digital Millennium Copyright acts." Moreover Biden has come across to the Wired site as being like most of his fellow Democrats on the Judiciary Committee—he’s "more of a friend to Hollywood than to Silicon Valley.

"Like many other members of congress, on the relatively infrequent occasions when he does talk about intellectual property, his focus is on piracy. He co-chairs the congressional international anti-piracy caucus. Earlier this year, the group fingered specific trading partners, countries where it said digital-copyright piracy had reached ‘alarming levels.’ The group of countries included China, Russia, Canada, Mexico, Greece and Spain.

"The group didn’t recommend any specific sanctions against the countries, but Biden repeated an often-heard line on the Hill at the time.

"’Our ideas, our music, our books, our movies, our innovations are just as precious as any tangible property,’ he said. ‘With new technologies coming out at warp speed, this global problem will only get worse.’"

Balanced copyright as a job-grower and -preserver

Yes, senators, I’d encourage reasonable sanctions against countries that let piracy go unpublished. But wouldn’t the cause be easier without copyright-term extension and the current DMCAish laws? The more illogical  are U.S. policymakers, the harder it will be to get other countries to enforce copyright laws.

Keep in mind, moreover, that Hollywood-centric copyright policy come at a price. The harder Washington works to overprotect wealthy campaign contributors in the entertainment business, the less leverage it will enjoy on other matters such as agriculture—and manufacturing, an area dear to the Biden, who has portrayed himself as a defender of American jobs.

Also in the area of copyright and job creation and protection, I would point out that the telecommunications industry is a bigger player in the U.S. economy than the entertainment one, as Prof. Andrew Odlyzko has documented. The stricter the copyright laws, the harder it is for the many to many model to thrive—the one that will lead to greater bandwidth consumption and development of new technology.

Hollywood-bought laws, moreover, in other ways, have been at odds with job-growing innovation.

I’d encourage TeleBlog readers to research these matters further and weigh in with comments—both on Obama and Biden copyright records, and on ways of educating them. If nothing else, I can try to convey these sentiments to one of Obama’s early backers. So be civil. Write to persuade, not attack.

Update, Aug. 24, 4:04 p.m.: Yes, I know Obama-Biden need Hollywood money. But perhaps one compromise would be to make the laws more consumer-friendly but vastly increase the amount of money for action against mass piracy of DVDs and so on. And again, I don’t mind sanctions when laws are reasonable. But Bono and DMCAish approaches definitely are not, and as noted, they may actually harm the anti-piracy fight.

Detail: I am hardly the first to make the Prohibition-DMCA comparison. I’m using it here because it’s so apt.

School photo: CC-licened image from Extra Ketchup.