[DMCA-Activists] Tom Barger: BCast Flag Hearings BitTorrent

[Seth Johnson]

Greetings all. I hope you will link to this torrent.

Woe To The Congressman Who Blows Up your TV

The Hollywood studios marches up to the Hill with legislation in
hand, and drags along the RIAA solution to free radio.

by TOM BARGER

I have offered up the Broadcast Flag Hearings video at this link:
http://torrents.dmusic.com/torrents/br_flag_hearings.mp4.torrent

An excellent way to try out your new video iPod.

This invitation to Internet discussion would seemingly be an
example of  the "signal piracy" from which the webcaster giants
demand relief in the  Geneva WIPO meetup on Nov. 21. Irony
abounds when one considers that  Bainwol and Glickman would be
just as happy as I am to see their  testimony disseminated hither
and yonder. The works of a government  entity, after all, are in
the public domain.

Rep. Rick Boucher repeatedly asks for reassurance that news and
public  affairs programming would be exempt from Hollywood DRM
mandates. It  occurs to me that Robert Greenwald is still at
legal risk from the  corporations he exposes in his
documentaries, and that satirists such as  Jon Stewart need not
succumb to "permission culture" when discussing the  day's news.

The corporate lawyerly banter about the so-called "analogue hole"
is  based on a myth that the speaker outputs, those little
red-and-white RCA  plugs, are dripping and draining away
America's precious bodily fluids.  A far better explanation, in
my opinion, is that Congressional  Representatives put their
careers at risk when Midwestern and Southern  voters realize
their trusty television sets and radio receivers no  longer work.
Nothing but snow and static!

My own Representative, Rick Boucher (9th-Va.), informed me three
years  ago that 60% of our constituents in the Blue Ridge
Mountains still use  "rabbit ears" TV antennae. It was his
efforts that clarified the  Must-Carry Provisions to ensure that
flash-flood warnings would be  available over local satellite and
cable.

I was intrigued by two points that Congressman Boucher brought up
in the  Broadcast Flag Hearings. True to old RIAA and MPAA
habits, the Halloween  Horror papers were given to Congressional
staff the day before (.pdf and  discussion here):

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004106.php#004106

Boucher likes to keep his 81-year old mother informed of his
doings  (Dorothy Boucher was the first female attorney west of
Roanoke, Va.) and  hopes she is proud of him. He would not have
the ability to email links  to his video appearances if the
Broadcast Flag cripples the internet.  And further, Congressman
Boucher thinks it's important for his staff to  forward his
opponents' TV commercials while he's out on the campaign trail.

The Broadcast Flag Hearings are stymied the the face of
gathering  support of  Rep. Boucher's and Rep. Joe Barton's
(6th-Texas) Fair Use  Hearings, in the House Committee on Energy
and Commerce.

On May 12, 2004, an impressive panel of experts to discuss the
DMCRA.  For video highlights of the hearings please look at:

http://files.dmusic.com/video/newindex.html