MRose_PK

I understand the frustration (as a full-time consumer advocate, it's my daily reality), but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. For nearly a century, copyright was treated as something that solely concerned the entertainment/publishing industries. There was a general pattern: a new business model or technology (anything from player pianos to "talkie" movie theaters) would come along and upset the profit apple cart. All the major players would take their complaints to Congress, spend a decade or two angrily negotiating, then finally hash out an update to copyright law that struck a new balance of power between the various industries. Of course, as soon as that was done, a new upstart would come along and flip the apple cart, and the process would repeat itself. The "tech vs content" fight or the last three decades is just the latest iteration of that old pattern.

What's different now is that every single person online--which means nearly every single person, period--is forced to interact with copyright law, every single day, with every single keystroke they make online. This means that users are now a core stakeholder in copyright law. And the consensus on that point is strong, and growing. I testified before Congress on this point, and for the first time in the history of copyright policy, lawmakers have started to agree with us.

Changing the narrative around copyright law has been a multi-decade process, but we've truly started turning the corner. We need more voices to keep up the drumbeat.

Everything Rebecca said. Also wanted to add a bit from the DC perspective: for the overwhelming majority of legislators, copyright is not something they can build their "brand" on. It's extremely opaque; requires a fairly high degree of both technical and legal expertise to effectively reform; is vast and sprawling, with tendrils (and stakeholders) in almost every major American industry; isn't seen by most voter constituencies as a discrete issue in the way that immigration or healthcare are; and, if you're a legislator, it's an extremely risky field to jump into, especially when you consider the entertainment lobbies substantially outspend even major tech lobbies.

We're hoping to change all of that by building a movement and gathering user voices to change the calculus and make it worth legislators' while to tackle. You can take the first step by going to to www.publicknowledge.org/FixTheDMCA to see what you can do to help.

Can I answer this too? (Pretty please?)

My husband is an absolute OC ReMix fanboy. Every time he burns out an iPod or phone, the first thing he does is re-download the entire archive. His enthusiasm is contagious, and you guys have provided the soundtrack to literally dozens of interstate road trips.

ETA: I mentioned outing him as a fanboy, and his response was "I am not. I just have all the music and listen to it exclusively while running." Nerd.

Possible, yes; politically likely, no.

The balance of influence in Congress is such that consumer advocates do not have nearly the leverage, allies, or recognition needed to get something like that through. The much more likely version of "reforming the DMCA through year-end spending package" maneuver would be similar to what happened with CASE: a change largely supported by the entertainment industry (and opposed by consumer advocates) gets shoved in as a way to bypass public outcry.

The classic lawyer answer: It depends. EFF is currently challenging the constitutionality of Section 1201 specifically in court, so that depends on the speed of litigation. Convincing legislators of this is a much steeper uphill fight, for the reasons I mentioned above (complex, high risk of getting targeted by the entertainment industry, low reward among your constituents--who usually don't know about this issue--for taking it on).