Escalating the copyright rhetoric....On Thursday a group of copyright industry executives testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property. Joining them was John Malcolm, a deputy assistant attorney general, who offered this syllogism to the subcommittee. Much copyright infringement can be traced to organized crime. Organized crime syndicates engage in many kinds of wrongdoing, "including supporting terrorist activities". Therefore, "[a]ll components of the Justice Department...will do everything within their power to make sure that intellectual property piracy does not become a vehicle for financing or supporting acts of terror." (PS: There are two intersecting lines of hysteria here. First, every hot crime must be shoehorned into the category of terrorism in order to justify expanded surveillance and heightened sanctions. Second, copyright infringement must be inflated to the most serious offense that the public test of ridicule will allow. The analogy to pillaging ships worked for a while, but the Justice Department now perceives an opportunity for ratcheting up.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/16/2003 08:13:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
