No particular friend of the Bush Administration, and definitely not trying
to start a political argument, but a quick search for campaign donations at
opensecrets.org shows that the RIAA has contributed just as much to the
Democrats as to the Republicans (more in most years). RIAA's assault on
Napster and other alternate distribution models started very much during
the Clinton Administration. The Copyright Extension Act (aka the Bono Act)
was introduced in 1997 and signed into law by Clinton in 1998. The case
against it was originally Eldred v. Reno, and only became Eldred v.
Ashcroft after the US got a new attorney general (the attorney general is
the office named in the suit).
In other words, don't believe for an instant that things in this area will
improve when Bush leaves office, or were better before he got here.
On Feb 4, 2004, at 4:50 PM, Patrick Norris wrote:
I'm imagining a Bush Administration type all out assault...with some
highly creative name like "the war on copyright infringement"
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Caleb Deupree
ctdeupree@xxxxxxxxxxxxx