Rep. Dick Boucher shares his thoughts on the DMCA

June 25, 2004

For those of you who don't know, House of Representative Dick Boucher is the legislator who introduced the Digital Media Consumers' Right Act which allows for the circumvention of copy protection for making personal copies of CD/DVDs. C|Net recently sat down with him for a Q & A session about the much hated DMCA. Here is a snipet:

These may be strong arguments, but they are also abstruse ones. How do you hope to win over your colleagues when you have people on the other side, like Rep. Butch Otter, saying: "Theft is theft, and property is property"?

I think that most people (who) do have
an understanding of the role of intellectual property and history do not
agree with that rather simplistic statement. Intellectual property is
inherently term-limited. It has always been seen as being less of a
property right than ownership of a car or land, which is permitted until
the owner decides to depart with it and which is rather absolute in its
terms.

Our intellectual-property laws have always been intentionally porous, and the porous nature of those laws, accommodating, for example, the Fair Use Doctrine, has enabled the society to have a right to use intellectual property in certain circumstances without having to obtain the permission in advance of the owner of the copyright.

It's nice to see an elected offical who actually understands technology as opposed to the "I wanna blow up your computer" mentality of some techno-phob like Senator Orrin Hatch. We should vote more people like this into office come November. You can read the entire interview here. Trust me, it's a good read.

Source: C|Net