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[FYI] U.S.: Showdown at high noon on the Senate floor between warring authors of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.



http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,41845,00.html

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Copyright or Copy Wrong?  

by Brad King  

2:00 a.m. Feb. 16, 2001 PST  

The copyright is wrong, Orrin.  

Looks like there's going to be a showdown at high noon on the Senate 
floor between warring authors of the Digital Millennium Copyright 
Act.  

On the one side are those who believe the DMCA has allowed piracy to 
become rampant, and technology companies to run roughshod over 
property rights. On the other side are those who believe the content 
companies, especially in the week of the Napster ruling, have too 
much control.  

[...]

Those arguments led Bruce Lehman, one of the original writers of the 
bill, to put together a consortium of trade and artist groups to 
fight those very technology companies.  

"The balance (of copyright law) is tilting toward this anarchist, 
everything-for-free view," said Robert Hudson Westover, media 
relations consultant for the International Intellectual Property 
Institute where Lehman works. "You've got to remember that technology 
is on the side of those who want to pirate. They are working on 
shutting down Napster, but there are hundreds of other applications 
out there."  

Executives from the streaming and downloading companies have 
complained that without access to content from the music and movie 
industry, their businesses would certainly fail.  

[...]  

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