FC: Bush administration is cool to Sen. Hollings' copyright bill

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Text of Hollings' Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act:
http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdtpa/

Politech archive on the CBDTPA:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=cbdtpa

-Declan

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http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52145,00.html

   White House Cool to Hollings' Act
   By Declan McCullagh 

   2:00 a.m. April 27, 2002 PDT
   WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is lukewarm on a plan to embed
   copy-protection technology in software and consumer electronics.
   
   James Rogan, the Commerce Department's undersecretary for intellectual
   property, has expressed mild skepticism about a bill championed by
   Senate Commerce chairman Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina).
   
   "Before Congress rushes into the imposition of a legislative
   solution," Rogan said, "I hope its members will grant more time for
   the free market to find its own middle ground."
   
   Hollings' Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act is
   the entertainment industry's boldest attempt yet to compel the
   computer industry to adopt software and hardware standards aimed at
   reducing illicit copying. It requires that "any hardware or software"
   that could be used to copy digital content include anti-piracy
   technologies.
   
   Rogan, who advises President Bush on copyright matters and runs the
   U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, is a big fan of the 1998 Digital
   Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) -- a controversial law that's
   currently the subject of at least three lawsuits.
   
   At a conference on Thursday, Rogan said: "The DMCA carefully balances
   the interests of all stakeholders to ensure that content owners would
   enjoy the protection they need to put their works on the Internet and
   to ensure that appropriate fair use is maintained for consumers,
   scientists and educators."

   [...]



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