Meet Howard Berman.
By the standards of the old proprietary politics Berman is a liberal, a steward of the people, a good Southern California Democrat.
By the standards of open source, however, Berman is to the right of the KKK.
Berman is among the Congressional Democrats who have come to depend upon the copyright industries for their political protection. In particular, Berman is a champion of the music and movie industries. (That link to OpenSecrets.org gives the details.)
These are the industries that pushed through the DMCA. These are the industries that began the Copyright Wars. In the name of protecting corporate profits, they expect immortal copyrights and absolute control over what you can do with products you buy, after you buy them. They have been fighting, in other words, to destroy fair use.
This stand is completely antithetical to an open source politics. It’s counter-productive in terms of open source economics. It’s also antithetical to the clear intent of the Founders in establishing patent and copyright rights. They sought, in Article I, Section 8, to enable a limited monopoly for a limited time. And for a limited purpose, to encourage the creation of newer content.
Here’s the language:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by
securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to
their respective Writings and Discoveries;
The Founders saw copyright as an individual right, not as a corporate right. They saw it as a limited right, not a property right. They saw it as something to encourage new production, not to hold the future hostage to the past.
Berman has a long history of fighting fair use in the name of his corporate masters. Following is some language he wants to drop into the net neutrality bill on behalf of those who pull his strings:
"Nothing in this section shall be construed–(A) to enlarge or to
diminish
the ability of a broadband network provider to utilize
filtering or similar
technologies, or to require subscribers to utilize
technologies or devices,
that are intended to prevent violations of
title 17 of the United States
Code; or (B) to impair the ability of a
broadband network provider to
prevent subscribers from utilizing
technologies designed to facilitate such
violations."
In plain English, this would embed Digital Rights Management into the Internet. Record or movie companies would dictate specific DRM technologies, which every device on the network would have to support. It would also destroy the bill, allowing any content provider to evade network neutrality simply by claiming they were enforcing their rights under this section of the bill.
The depth of the political re-arrangement implied by open source politics is this. To the extent you accept open source, open networks and open spectrum you are progressive. To the extent you denounce them you are regressive.
Sharing is an essential part of learning, teaching, researching, and creating new intellectual goods. Economies that accomodate this will advance in the 21st century, and those which don’t, won’t.
