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erikm
12-03-2007, 11:48 AM
Hello,
A question from a foreign watcher.

What is Ron Paul's stand on intellectual property law and the various abuses of the legal system that have been perpetrated in its name?

There are various things I'm talking about here. I'm highlighting only a couple of them.

1) the 'extend copyright till forever' laws such as the Sonny Bono copyright extension act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension_Act) (aka Mickey Mouse protection act) which tacked 20 years or so onto a copyright's duration. Guess who lobbied for it.

2) the DCMA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act). There are many things wrong with this law and even more about its enforcement. The various ex-parte fishing trips (followed by what is effectively extortion) by the RIAA are only the most visible of those. See Recording Industry vs The People (http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/) for more information on this issue.

3) attacking the fair use doctrine by means of (DCMA) digital rights management (DRM) 'abuse'. By this I mean that rights owners dictate how content shall be used and have the legal power to forbid any other use. This even extends to reverse engineering for compatibility needs. If, for instance, I have an electronic book with DRM and I want (need) to convert this to a braille reader because I'm blind, I'm screwed unless there's a licensed application that does this.

In a number of years this will probably start to bite people big time. They'll be trying to get modern computers and software to accept decade(s) old digital media and finding out that the publishers of their (paid for) media don't support it, aren't interested in supporting it and that they (the consumers) are legally prohibited from trying to adapt it themselves without a license (which they can't have without a $thousands payment).

Given the popularity of digital media, iPods and the like, the stance on this is something people might like to know.

Addendum: Arstechnica posted a relevant article (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071121-riaampaa-ask-presidential-candidates-for-more-restrictive-copyright-laws.html) recently.

Regards,
ErikM

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on US or intellectual property law. Please research before using for any purpose.

Matt Collins
12-03-2007, 12:07 PM
I am sure he is for the protection of "intellectual property" as set forth in the Constitution.

However I would bet money that he is against everything you have mentioned above because of his strict adherence to small and limited government. That and he isn't in the back pocket of media corps like Fox/News and NBC/Universal and ABC/Disney and CBS/Paramount/Viacom...


And I am an expert in US copyright law

Zarxrax
12-03-2007, 12:45 PM
I don't believe he has ever spoken on intellectual property, so I don't think he is really aware of the issue too much. I feel confident that he would agree current laws are excessive and unconstitutional though. I also think that he wouldn't try to force the USA's laws onto other countries.

therealjjj77
12-03-2007, 04:30 PM
Very good question. I have been wondering the same thing about my president to be.

I don't have a very strong stance as I haven't thoroughly researched the issue, but I tend to be against a lot of what has been going on this last century surrounding copyright laws. I don't see the necessity of gov't involvement. Copyright laws tend to gender and sustain monopolies and oligopolies which are certainly harmful to society as a whole. I get sick of hearing about innovations that would drastically change our fuel economy, only to find out it gets bought up by an oil company or auto company and gets buried.

Matt Collins
12-03-2007, 11:26 PM
IP laws de facto create monopolies, but the trick is that they are supposed to be limited.


This will NEVER be discussed in a presidential campaign because it's way more complicated than what the average American can understand, it's not a sexy issue, and it isn't a deciding factor for almost anyone who votes.