Copyright update

The new Congress is considering some modifications to copyright laws. In addition to Net Neutrality legislation, the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to consider some adaptations for webcasting and other Internet applications:

Aaron Cooper, who serves as counsel to Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) in the Senate Judiciary Committee, said his boss is interested pursuing performance rights and Net neutrality legislation, a topic that could implicate copyright issues because of its relationship with file swapping. These subjects will likely arise as top committee issues along with patent reform, which is Leahy's priority, Cooper said.

In addition to webcasting, there's the matter of Cablevision, which wants to create a sort of online Tivo service to delay TV broadcasts for its cable subscribers. Naturally, the media companies want to squelch anything that's consumer-friendly so they're opposing this tooth and nail. But it's not that terribly different from the temporary copies which Microsoft Word places on your hard disk as backups when you save documents.

A panel at the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee's State of the Net Conference in Washington agreed that the statutory licensing laws, which affect webcasting as well as recordings such as CDs, need to be updated:

The laws are currently "geared toward an analog world," Cooper said.

All panelists agreed statutory licensing needs to be reformed, but there was disagreement as to whether their problems could be fixed with marketplace solutions.

Unfortunately, they're not going to address the continuing erosion of Fair Use, but there's always hope.

On another topic: the lawsuit against Joel Tenenbaum, which the RIAA is suing for $1 million for briefly posting a handful of songs on his website, will be webcast this Thursday, January 22, via the Courtroom View Network.

Also: A recent ruling by U.S. District Court judge James Jones in Virginia shows a little common sense: "Customers who download music and movies for free would not necessarily spend money to acquire the same product."

In New Zealand, they're having similar problems:

If section 92A is allowed to come in, ISPs will have to disconnect organisations such as businesses, public libraries, government agencies etc as a result of accusations that an employee has used their computers for illegal downloading.

Mr Baddeley said under the law those accused were considered guilty and punished without proof.