I largely agree with you that Redditors go over the top with things without thinking them through but have to point out a couple of lines that I disagree with.
>really? spend political capital to modify regulations on a $100bn industry for... DJs?
The point should be whether it's for the overall public good, not just for some industry. Lets assume the $100bn industry just rolls over and dies tomorrow, ignore the losses of art and entertainment for a second. What would consumers do with a $100bn extra in their pockets? Would they spend it on buying electric cars thus jumpstarting them? Would they invest it thus making new companies easy to start? Would it kickstart alternative business models that would employ some of the unemployed? Perhaps not. But the fact that it hurts a particular $100bn industry by itself should not be a veto against such a measure, or else we would still be riding horse buggies.
>Ask instead, "was this a politically effective policy memo?" Were its goals in the 113th congress realistic? Were its arguments persuasive? Something like 35% of all congresspeople are lawyers, and this memo starts out with a highly dubious argument about the meaning of the copyright clause.
Just like in courtcases, even in Congress you need to push for the extremes in order to get something done. If you push for realistic measures, it is sure to get watered down to essentially nothing. It's like a salary negotiation, if you start with a reasonable number, HR will never agree to that and will themselves offer a very low offer which you will have trouble in getting it where you want. You need to shoot for 10 to 20% more than what is "reasonable" in order to have any hope of getting a reasonable offer. Same with the bill here. Have you not been keeping up with how bills are negotiated in Congress? If anything reasonable is suggested, the Hollywood lobbyists with bags of cash in their hand will water it down. Hollywood spends a ton of money on lobbying, and legislators are cash strapped at election time with candidates raising millions.
I addressed the latter point downthread: it's not just that the memo overshot the RSC membership and the tolerances of the Content industry, but that it did so to no good effect: if every reform in the memo had been adopted (at huge cost politically), the content industry would still be able to threaten infringers with bankruptcy and starting a content-rich consumer Internet company would still be fraught.
On the former point, about DJs: making it simpler for DJs to sell music with rights-encumbered samples isn't going to fundamentally change the economics of either the content industry or the consumer Internet. Fair use for DJs is an issue that applies to a subculture of a subculture of a subculture, and even more weirdly, is an issue that has mostly been metabolized by that subsubsubculture: Girl Talk, for instance, wasn't going to make a lot of money selling his currently non-salable tracks, because almost nobody makes money selling recorded music anymore.
>really? spend political capital to modify regulations on a $100bn industry for... DJs?
The point should be whether it's for the overall public good, not just for some industry. Lets assume the $100bn industry just rolls over and dies tomorrow, ignore the losses of art and entertainment for a second. What would consumers do with a $100bn extra in their pockets? Would they spend it on buying electric cars thus jumpstarting them? Would they invest it thus making new companies easy to start? Would it kickstart alternative business models that would employ some of the unemployed? Perhaps not. But the fact that it hurts a particular $100bn industry by itself should not be a veto against such a measure, or else we would still be riding horse buggies.
>Ask instead, "was this a politically effective policy memo?" Were its goals in the 113th congress realistic? Were its arguments persuasive? Something like 35% of all congresspeople are lawyers, and this memo starts out with a highly dubious argument about the meaning of the copyright clause.
Just like in courtcases, even in Congress you need to push for the extremes in order to get something done. If you push for realistic measures, it is sure to get watered down to essentially nothing. It's like a salary negotiation, if you start with a reasonable number, HR will never agree to that and will themselves offer a very low offer which you will have trouble in getting it where you want. You need to shoot for 10 to 20% more than what is "reasonable" in order to have any hope of getting a reasonable offer. Same with the bill here. Have you not been keeping up with how bills are negotiated in Congress? If anything reasonable is suggested, the Hollywood lobbyists with bags of cash in their hand will water it down. Hollywood spends a ton of money on lobbying, and legislators are cash strapped at election time with candidates raising millions.