Obama VP has Record of Voting Against Tech
By Shawn on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 1:11 PM PST In Game Related Laws, Gamer Life
Barack Obama is selling people on promises to “update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated.” However Obama’s new running mate has a track record for voting against the consumer in tech issues.
According to CNet’s Declan McCullough, Joe Biden traditionally has supported the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)’s draconian measures against consumers.
Biden became a staunch ally of Hollywood and the recording industry in their efforts to expand copyright law. He sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have make it a federal felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs. Biden’s bill was backed by content companies including News Corp. but eventually died after Verizon, Microsoft, Apple, eBay, and Yahoo lobbied against it.
A few months later, Biden signed a letter that urged the Justice Department “to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks.” Critics of this approach said that the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, and not taxpayers, should pay for their own lawsuits.
Last year, Biden sponsored an RIAA-backed bill called the Perform Act aimed at restricting Americans’ ability to record and play back individual songs from satellite and Internet radio services. (The RIAA sued XM Satellite Radio over precisely this point.)
So far Biden has refused to comment on his current stance on tech issues. According to GamePolitics Biden’s strong support of Intellectual Property rights is ironic in that he’s been nailed twice for plagiarism himself.
Biden’s past choices call to question what stance the potential Vice-President might take as the video game and electronic entertainment industries are weathering continual discussion regarding governmental regulation and the potential limitation or censoring of products made available on the US market. His traditional anti-consumer stance could mean he’d favor regulation over self-policing.
The first one is the only one that worries me. The second paragraph, for example, is only a problem if you’re a pirate; the government handles crime regardless, so insisting that companies should have to do the Justice Department’s job is ludicrous.
Wait… being anti-piracy is now anti-tech? I mean I pirate the hell out of the interwebs but never considered that to be techie. This isn’t gaming news and unless it’s going to effect my gaming, I don’t want to read it here.
Bidens plagiarism scandals were bad but for the most part blown way out of proportion. One was not properly citing and quoting sources in a legal paper, and one was not properly acknowledging the source of a material in one of his speeches which turned out to have been taken from a british labour party official, which he had properly acknowledged before but did not during that one instance. Bad, but not that bad.
I don’t think that Biden’s anti-piracy stance is the issue.. its more about the debate on the industry.. and if the video game question comes to a head during a potential vice-presidential term that he traditionally rules against the consumer.
I don’t see any of his decisions as anti-tech or anti-consumer.
In the first thing he wanted it so that people couldn’t play pirated music.
In the second he wants to prosecute pirates.
In the third he wants to stop people from pirating music.
Okayyyyy. So basically he wants people to stop doing illegal things? The people he’s going for aren’t consumers, they are thiefs. They don’t buy the music, they pirate it.
I don’t see how you can say that you don’t think that Biden’s anti-piracy stance is the issue when it is CLEARLY THE ISSUE OF EVERYTHING THAT YOU CITE.
Matt, clearly the idea of punishing people for breaking the law is silly.
I think going to prison for a year or more is a little excessive for file sharing.
@ Kai
Most of the pirates have stolen for up to 7000 USD of games, movies, the likes. You think they should get fined and then let go? If someone stole 7000 USD worth of items from you, would you like them to just get fined?