Wednesday, April 28, 2010

IP Czar posts public comments; Public Knowledge inspires copycats

Back in February, White House IP Czar Victoria Espinel solicited comments from the public about two topics: 1) "the costs to the U.S. economy resulting from intellectual property violations, and the threats to public health and safety created by infringement"; and 2) "recommendations from the public regarding the objectives and content of the Joint Strategic Plan and other specific recommendations for improving the Government’s intellectual property enforcement efforts."

The public -- or about 1,700 members of it -- has now spoken. And Espinel's office has now posted to the web what they had to say. I've only clicked through to a small percentage of the comments. Many written by individual artists and creators calling for strong copyright protection note that they were informed of the request for comment by the Copyright Alliance. I also came across a ton with identical language apparently copied and pasted from Public Knowledge's web site. ("Remember to add your name at the end of the comments, below the 'Sincerely,'" PK helpfully reminded visitors.) I realize PK gave all these people permission to do what they did, but when you're discussing copyright, wouldn't you think it important to be just a little bit creative?

2 comments:

  1. Er isn't PK simply a front for our favourite ad broker?


    Anyway it looks as though legislators have finally wised up to online one-click to register outrage sites for single issue parties.

    http://www.iposgoode.ca/2010/04/noises-heard-canadas-recent-online-copyright-consultation-process/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Perhaps even more noteworthy is that virtually all responses of the type generally associated with PK's comments were not even responsive to the questions asked in the request for comments.

    ReplyDelete

Comments here are moderated. I appreciate substantive comments, whether or not they agree with what I've written. Stay on topic, and be civil. Comments that contain name-calling, personal attacks, or the like will be rejected. If you want to rant about how evil the RIAA and MPAA are, and how entertainment companies' employees and attorneys are bad people, there are plenty of other places for you to go.

 
http://copyrightsandcampaigns.blogspot.com/