But what about my God-Given Right that I should get everything for free? Now they are trampling all over my rights...
[/sarcasm]
Obama lines up with copyright owners
Summary
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama was a young technology fan who appeared to be an establishment outsider. But he now appears to have lined up on the side of copyright owners.
Topics
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama was young, a technology fan and appeared to be an establishment outsider. For those reasons some techies hoped he might be sympathetic to copyright reform.
Those hopes are facing fast has President Obama has appears to have lined up on the side of copyright owners. In a speech at the Export-Import Bank's annual conference in Washington D.C. U.S. President Barack Obama told attendees Thursday that his administration is firmly behind producers of creative works.
"We're going to aggressively protect our intellectual property," Obama said. "Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people...It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century. But it's only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can't just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor."
The president's comments come as his administration continues to revitalize an improving but still ailing U.S. economy. Obama's comments echo statements made often by leaders in the U.S. film, music, video game and software industries. For a while these sectors have claimed piracy and Internet file sharing mean the loss of U.S. jobs and poison the economy.
For more on this story, read Obama to 'aggressively protect' intellectual property on CNET News.
Talkback Most Recent of 14 Talkback(s)
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Qbt12th Mar 2010 -
Not the issue
Hey, I have no issue with the concept of copyright.
What I object to is how the powerful copyright holders (such as Disney) have gotten Congress to lock up copyright forever.
If copyright reverted to its original intent (limited exclusivity) then you'd get a lot less criticism from me. A patent (another form of creative expression) is good for 20 years. But copyright, nearly forever.
Dorkyman12th Mar 2010 -
Oh, and another thing
All you Messiah voters out there, it must be frustrating to see that the hero you voted for is just another smarmy politician--promise them anything, but deliver something entirely different. This man turns out to have a vision that few of us really want.Dorkyman12th Mar 2010 -
lol
cheers! well put
OneTwoc2112th Mar 2010 -
Actually...you would be wrong.
Candidate Obama DID NOT promise copyright change, as you are alluding to.
His take was: "Barack Obama believes we need 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."
Read the facts...he & McCain are on the same page here:
http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2008/08/mccain-and-obama-on-copyright/
Sorry, but you're still going to have to pay for things other people create...like it or not.
IT_Guy_z12th Mar 2010 -
Um, I call BS
Vague software patents, never ending copyrights, and litigious patent squaters are choking the "innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people" to death. Stronger copyrights do not lead to innovation.
User 1312th Mar 2010 -
Government Backdoor.
Just think if the IP BIG Media got what they want. ISP filtering via deep packet inspection for ''copyright'' violations. This info will be there for Big Brother. What government would not like to have such a treasure trove to access. Legal or illegal. Remember the Bell/AT&T secret rooms? That was a drop in the bucket.
JRude12th Mar 2010 -
You Rule
This should be copyrighted and then we sue who ever copies this post.
Thank you for this brilliant demonstration on technologies that should be copyrighted protected. I think we should protect the rest of the world from this.
nucrash13th Mar 2010 -
RE: Obama lines up with copyright owners
Obama has not,"lined up with copyright owners"
Agreeing to rigid copyright enforcement and implementing copyright reform are not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact...one would almost require the other or the whole system would fall apart.
The only way, for example, to implement term limits on a copyright would be if there could be a guarantee that in the interim there would be a zero tolerance policy on anything remotely similar for the company that created the device or concept and limited legal liability should a larger company with vastly superior financial resources try and steal it.
Socratesfoot15th Mar 2010 -
True, but...
we have to figure out a way of allowing creativity to
shine, while also not collapsing our economic structure
at the same time. Either meet at some middle ground,
force horrible creativity-stifling systems into place, or
come up with some new way of getting artists paid.
Larsix16th Mar 2010 -
This was supposed to be
in response to user 13.
OoopsLarsix16th Mar 2010 -
Where is the professional pride anymore?
"Those hopes are facing fast has President
Obama has appears to have lined up on the side of
copyright owners."
WOOF! I can't believe you published this
article with a sentence like that.
dadasys16th Mar 2010 -
RE: Obama lines up with copyright owners
"Those hopes are facing fast has President Obama has
appears to have lined up on the side of copyright owners."
To quote Moe Howard, "Fine English that is!"
Macdhai16th Mar 2010 -
Copyright makers good, copyright owners bad
Actually his speech backs creators. This is not the same as the distributors.
If you look at iTunes, it has sold 3 billion apps since it opened the app store. It has 100,000 different applications employing hundreds of thousands of people.
Before that came along, almost none of those applications had an outlet. The computer stores held a tiny number of applications, only from the big companies.
It was a dead market, controlled by a few big players and you can line up with the creators and be against the distributors that choked the channel.
So Obama lines up with the music creators too, good! But that is not the same as saying the RIAA should be allowed to rape the creators of all the profit. Yet that is how it was before the Internet. You had a record deal, and the record company got the profit and you got what was left. Not anymore!
He has not lined up with the middleman that controlled the markets, rather the producers and creators that make it and that's a good thing.
guihombre18th Mar 2010
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