Loved many of the points that John Kerry made last night, but when will he and John Edwards wise up on copyright? Think about the copyright-related implications that Kerry unwittingly raised in his speech:
A young generation of entrepreneurs asked, what if we could take all the information in a library and put it on a little chip the size of a fingernail? We did and that too changed the world forever.
Hmm. Dream on, John. The biggest obstacle isn’t the tech; it’s campaign contributors. How fascinating that you talked about a library on a chip–the very stuff gives copyright holders nightmares! And yet your policy advisors blew me off when I tried to educate them about Bono and also interest them in innovative ways of paying content-providers. Of course, the real action isn’t in libraries on a chip. It’s in networked libraries.
Perhaps a few of my fellow Democrats can get through to Kerry’s thick-skulled advisors and make a difference. I’d love to hear that “Help is on the way” for legitimate P2P activities, AOL-type networks and other areas of high tech–menaced by our own party in cahoots with the Republicans.
Kerry can talk all he wants to about billions for tech-related R&D; but thuggish Hollywoodish efforts like INDUCE-style laws will neutralize the money. If it weren’t for Hollywood, tech entrepreneurs on their own could accomplish far more–investing true private sector money rather than tax dollars (or those from tax breaks). We need both public and private investment. Too bad Hollywood lawyers are discouraging the private sector variety in such areas as P2P. So many of Kerry’s campaign donors are toxic to broadband. His good buddy Jack Valenti just sees it as a faster way to pirate. Regardless of all the Kerry rhetoric and his tax-break plans, the Senator really does not feel comfortable with high tech. According to one report, he did not work on The Speech with a computer but rather used a yellow legal pad. Although it surpassed the typical Kerry effort, the right cuts and pastes might have resulted in conspicuous improvements.
The Thomas Wolfe angle: “A great American novelist wrote that you can’t go home again,” Kerry said. “He could not have imagined this evening.” In a different context, Kerry made me think of the other John, who comes from Wolfe’s North Carolina. Why can’t Kerry and Edwards come home to the needs of their constituents rather than Hollywood’s copyright overlords? If it hadn’t been for Bono, North Carolina children could “come home” to Thomas Wolfe from Project Gutenberg and other free libraries on the Internet.
Reminder: TeleRead itself is nonpartisan; and, as you can see, it’s grouchy about the cluelessness that both parties have shown toward copyright.
Coming: More Librie-related musings, Hollywood-bought copyright laws vs. tech jobs here in Northern Virginia, DRM’s harm to non-VIP creators, short stories on the Net, and Turkish bookmarks (the p book variety). So much to say. So little time to say it in. Hey, come back Monday!
