Obama picks BSA's antipiracy enforcer for high-level post
For his vice president, Barack Obama chose Joe Biden, a senator with a long history of aiding the Recording Industry Association of America. Then Obama picked the RIAA's favorite lawyer, Tom Perrelli, for a top Justice Department post.
Now, as one of his first official actions as president, Obama has selected the Business Software Alliance's top antipiracy enforcer and general counsel, Neil MacBride, for a senior Justice Department post. Among other duties, MacBride has been responsible for the BSA's program that rewarded people for phoning in tips about suspected software piracy.
Neil MacBride, vice president of antipiracy and general counsel to the Business Software Alliance, Obama's pick for associate deputy attorney general. MacBride was also an aide to Vice President Joe Biden.
(Credit: BSA.org)All of these choices are well-qualified for their jobs, of course, and there's little reason to believe that Obama's copyright-litigator-turned-DOJer will have to leap any real Senate hurdles. (MacBride was appointed as associate deputy attorney general, a position does not require Senate confirmation, and previously worked on copyright and other issues as chief counsel to then-Sen. Biden.)
Still, the elevation of RIAA and BSA lawyers must feel like a poke in the eye to the copyleft and progressive crowd, who spent over a year showering Obama with praise. Public Knowledge called Obama's election an "important" victory, while Free Press lauded it as "a sea change in leadership that allows us to go from playing defense to offense." Stanford professor Larry Lessig--probably the best known "free culture" proponent--went so far as to plead for all of his friends to "do something this time" by voting for Obama over his Republican rival.
"Neil MacBride will serve the country well in his new position at the Justice Department," Robert Holleyman, BSA's president, said in a statement on Thursday.
BSA has opposed changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention section, once saying that legislation to allow backup copies of DVDs or video games would provide a "safe harbor for pirates who could easily claim that the 'intent' of their actions were legal." Early in the campaign, Obama told CNET News that he would support such a law, but hedged it by saying his support was "in concept" only. (He also claimed at the time to oppose retroactive immunity for telcos that illegally opened their networks to the National Security Agency, and we know how that turned out.)
Obama has fulfilled some of his campaign promises with surprising rapidity. On Wednesday, he ordered government agencies to be more open and Internet-friendly. On Thursday, he announced that the Guantanamo Bay prison would be closed within a year.
But copyright policy is far from Guantanamo, either in symbolic import or in partisan divisiveness. It's no coincidence that the most-loathed copyright bill in recent memory was written by a Democrat, or that a Hollywood Democrat pushed through yet another expansion of copyright law last year.
Nor is it a coincidence that the president of the RIAA gives money only to Democratic causes and politicians, or that Bill Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act into law by saying he was "pleased" to sign a measure preventing "piracy in the digital age." (Trivia for Democrats: Clinton used the same type of signing statement that Bush became famous for, saying "I will construe" the legislation in a way that enhanced the power of the executive branch.)
Obama's most important copyright pick likely will be the so-called White House IP czar, created by the new Pro-IP Act. Speculation has included lobbyist Hal Ponder of the American Federation of Musicians; Michele Ballantyne of the RIAA (who has ties to Obama transition chief John Podesta); or Alec French of NBC Universal.
It's likely that the incoming IP czar--the full title is Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator and it requires Senate confirmation--will be influential in intra-administration copyright debates. But it would be foolhardy to deny the influence of the world's largest law firm, also known as the Justice Department, which has tossed around its considerable bulk in recent policy spats.
Some examples: A Justice Department official said in 2002 that the agency could begin to prosecute peer-to-peer pirates, and it still has the power to do so today. The department intervened in the RIAA's civil lawsuit against Jammie Thomas on the side of the record labels. It published an extensive report in 2004 calling for more powers and a law permitting lawsuits against companies that sell products that "induce" copyright infringement. In 2007, it proposed sweeping new legislation to outlaw "attempted" but unsuccessful copyright infringement.
This is where Obama is sending the RIAA (Tom Perrelli) and BSA (Neil MacBride) lawyers.
Two days into an administration is far too soon to evaluate its policies, of course, especially when important vacancies exist. But it may be possible that when Candidate Obama offered the usefully vague promise that he would "reform our copyright and patent systems," he had in mind something rather different than what many of his most enthusiastic Internet supporters did.
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan. 
I did think it was foolhardy for Free Software supporters to get behind Obama in such a big way, especially as his party seemed fond of using Microsoft Silverlight. Now that they've supported him, they've got to live with him! Thankfully I'm outside the US so I won't bear the brunt of whatever his posse has in mind.
You would be amazed. All it takes is one disgruntled admin, and there's no shortage of those...
OTOH, you're right - Obama is shaping up to be the biggest enemy for technology freedom that has ever existed.
In particular, I think we need an end to the ISP safe harbour provisions; many of the ISPs taking advantage of them know full well that their equipment is being used for piracy and are using the safe harbour to ensure that they can continue profiting from this illegal and immoral activity without acquiring any liability themselves. The fact that there was the other day an article, I think on this very site, where an ISP was demanding to be *paid* for information on his own customers' illegal copyright infringement, and complaining that without being paid he had no motivation as they were, after all, paying him money, shows the entire industry up for what it has become.
I think things would work much better if it was the ISPs that were primarily liable for this kind of problem, frankly. It may seem unfair to punish them for the activities of their customers, but:
1. It means that copyright holders aren't reduced to trying to sue their own customer base (ala RIAA), which is not only extremely unpopular with the public, but almost certainly hurts their legitimate business.
2. It means that ISPs can't profit indirectly from infringement. This seems only right as they *could* shut a lot of it down tomorrow if they chose to do so. Obviously they don't choose to do that because it's a profitable activity for many of them.
3. It means that copyright holders have someone who actually is likely to have some money that they can sue for. Copyright was never written with the current consumer piracy problem in mind; it was written to deal with commercial infringement of one kind or another. It just doesn't work as a way to stop *consumer* piracy if the cost of prosecuting for infringement is greater than value of the assets of the person you're suing. It did work for commercial piracy even in that case, because it stopped them making a profit, but that's not what consumer piracy is about.
ending the safe harbor provisions for ISPs and website operators is the dumbest idea ever. DMCA take down notices are already being abused as it is. they are used to silence critics and competitors. if you do away with the safe harbor provisions, abuse would not just shut down individual web pages, but whole sections of the country serviced by large ISPs. half the country would be offline in a matter of days.
safe harbor provisions are the only good thing about the DMCA. the rest is anti-competitive big money corporate welfare.
<i>"an ISP was demanding to be paid* for information on his own customers' illegal copyright infringement[..]shows the entire industry up for what it has become."</i>
so you want a business to turn away paying customers without being paid to do so? that's ridiculous. ISP's sell connections to the internet. cutting people off from the internet is exactly the opposite of what ISP's do.
why don't you ask starbucks to stop selling coffee and see how long they last?
<i>"1. It means that copyright holders aren't reduced to trying to sue their own customer base..."</i>
if copyright holders don't want to sue their customer base, they can simply stop suing their customer base. you're damn right it hurts their legitimate business. why not focus on your paying customers, and giving them more reasons to pay? just because you are within your rights to sue, doesn't mean that it's a good idea. by suing grandmothers, college students, and single mothers, the RIAA has ruined an entire generation on the idea of paying for music. the MPAA is not far behind.
<i>"2. It means that ISPs can't profit indirectly from infringement..."</i>
the only reason that ISPs profit at all from infringement is that infringement is the reason that a lot of people have broadband internet access in the first palce. but infringement is not directly profitable. in fact, it costs ISP's a lot of money in terms of bandwidth. P2P traffic accounts for something like 75% of all internet traffic. nothing would make most ISP's happier than to see a 75% drop in network utilization, but if they did stop P2P traffic, there is a chance that as much as 75% of network users could go away. why would a business risk losing 75% of it's customers?
there is also the fact that piracy has happened well before ISP's and will continue to happen even if you got all the ISP's in the world to stop tomorrow. for every P2P service you shut down there are 3 to take it's place. people traded warez on BBS, IRC and usenet way before napster, and threw copy parties in the real world before any of us knew what the internet was.
it's impossible to stop P2P, but even if it was, if you push pirates off the net and they will keep working (and thriving) offline. you think protecting IP is tough on the internet, let me tell you about the darknet. try shutting down wireless mesh networks and USB hard drive parties. even if you got the FBI to help you, you might stop the 5 largest groups. in the 80's people traded floppies and bill gates had to write an open letter to the community about software piracy, imagine trading terabyte sized hard drives.
<i>"3. It means that copyright holders have someone who actually is likely to have some money[..] but that's not what consumer piracy is about."</i>
"Consumer Piracy"? what the hell is that? copyright is set up to keep one party from profiting from the work of another. the assumption that an unauthorized copy is a lost sale is wrong on it's face. there is no way to prove that someone would have bought something if there wasn't a free copy available. there is no way to prove that someone bought something after sampling a free copy. however, there are a great number of writers, musicians, and film makers, that have seen sales increase after giving away free copies.
not making money on every copy is not the same as losing money, just like standing still isn't the same as moving backwards.
the way the world works is that some people will always pay (the collectors of the world) some people will never pay (the hardened pirates of the world) and some people will sometimes pay (everyone else). rather than waste money suing people that have no money and will just spread ill will about your company and your products, why not focus your time, energy, and money, on delivering more value and more incentive to the collectors and everyone else?
ISP's are just a utility. They should not be spying on us just to make sure rich people stay rich.
...so you replaced it with the iron fist of corporatism?
Damn.
Not a replacement, a continuation of the last 8 years
I have to agree with Perry_Clease: the fact is that the Democrats will be better in almost ALL areas than the Republicans were. The only thing I am really worried about is gun control, which I do not like and think it needs to TOTALLY disappear, at least for anyone who is not convicted of a gun-related felony.
We don't yet know how this guy will be in office, even though he came from RIAA he could change his "tune." I have no problem with going after music, software, video, or graphic pirates, it was the way that it was done. Hopefully will have some common sense in the matter, time will tell.
Gotta, be back in a few hours.
Although I am all for technology related freedoms, it isn't like the Republicans did anything to help it either. Besides, would you rather focus on one issue like copyright law or on the big picture which the Republicans royally messed up and Obama is already working to fix?
"Your facts are badly confused" New descriptive phrase of the day for 90% of internet users.
I would have used sorely instead of badly... but the intent stays the same.
the fact is that obama has been picking tech fascist after tech fascist, Joe "Pro-RIAA" Biden is the VP afterall. if this tech lineup isnt equivalent to Bush's scientific holocaust then i dont know what is. republicans had their chance to rear their heads with their fascist regime, now its time for the fascism to come from the other side, the "democratic" socialists. now i dare you to name a communist regime that hasnt been strongly coupled with fascism.
I knew this kind of $hit would happen when, after Obama picked Biden, and I researched Biden's history of anti-freedom and anti-privacy voting.
Thanks a lot, mindless sheeple! So many people I know and trust voted for Obama, falling as gullible victims to the mind control of the mass media... it's so sad.
Fuçk it, I will just have to move to Canada.
The DMCA was signed into law by then President Bill Clinton.
- by fafafooey January 26, 2009 6:16 AM PST
- CHANGE! Suckas...
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