Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
In my recent paper on “Fact and Fiction in the Debate over Video Games,” I pointed out that one of the reasons that many lawmakers were stepping-up efforts to regulate video games was because of the supposed failure of the industry’s voluntary ratings system. In particular, many critics claim that the ratings system is not [...]
Unfortunately, as I predicted would be the case in my National Review editorial earlier this morning, today’s hearing on video games in the Senate Judiciary Committee turned out to be quite a one-sided show trial. Senator Sam Brownback called the hearing to blast the game industry for what he called “graphic,” “horrific,” and even “barbaric” [...]
The indecency fines imposed recently by the FCC have raised a lot of eyebrows, for their inconsistency as well as severity. (See Adam Thierer’s excellent discussion here.) Now, however, the FCC’s basic competence is at issue. According to Communications Daily, among the fines handed down by the Commission two weeks ago were several on stations [...]
Solveig Singleton links to this article about the French DRM proposal. I agree with its conclusion, but it strikes me as rather naive: Like most such legislation, this bill is ill-conceived and should not pass. The reason for this is simple: it would weaken any DRM scheme, almost to the point of superfluity, and would [...]
French legislators recently approved a bill that will force technology companies such as Apple Computer to share proprietary technology with rivals. Such a move is not only a recipe for disaster but completely unnecessary. The digital music market has always been a tumultuous place. For a long time, Hollywood and Silicon Valley battled over how [...]
< p> Bridget Dooling and I have an article in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal. It’s the Rule of Law column and, not surprisingly, it’s on orphan works. Here’s a bit: Fiddling with copyright terms and registration, however, would require not only the abrogation of several international intellectual property treaties, but also the political will [...]
Steve Jobs is just a fountain of anti-DRM quotes. You might recall his 2003 comment that protecting digital content was impossible. Then there’s this comment from 2002: Apple CEO Steve Jobs offered a critical view of the recording industry in an interview, following Apple’s acceptance of a technical Grammy award from the National Academy of [...]
Claims that new video competitors will “redline”–i.e. avoid building out in selected inner-city or minority areas–remain a major stumbling block to video franchise reform in Congress. This was underscored yesterday in a letter by the Congressional Black Caucus sent to Reps. Barton and Dingell calling for anti-bia rules in any legislation. (As reported in Communications [...]
There are a lot of political debates in which one side believes that a particular activity ought to be compulsory, while the other side believes it ought to be prohibited. For example, conservatives liberals want to teach evolution in schools, while liberals conservatives want to prohibit the teaching of evolution in schools. The debate over [...]
In my initial response to Patrick Ross’s critique of my paper, I said that he appears to have failed to engage (or to simply not have grasped) my central arguments. Here is an example: The paper also appears to embrace piracy. Take this example: “Shipping a carton of bootleg videotapes across state lines is expensive, [...]
May 25, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
