Maybe you noticed that I didn't do much posting yesterday. That's because I was working on the EFF's comments on the BPDG co-chairs' final report. Follow the link below to read 'em, and if you're down for the cause, talk to your employer about signing onto them, then contact Seth.
The BPDG's objective is to write a legally mandatory "standard" that will undermine public policy interests, fair use, First Amendment rights, and the innovation that is the sweetest fruit of a competitive marketplace.
We hope that readers of the Co-Chair's Report will find, in this briefing, compelling evidence of the dangers presented by the BPDG recommendations and will recognize them as the self-interested aspirations of a small, partisan group seeking to write an anti-competitive law that protects its commercial interests at the public's expense.
The BPDG "process" has been rife with acrimony, arbitrariness and confusion, to an extent that cannot be fully ascribed to mere haste. EFF believes that the failings of the BPDG process stem directly from BPDG's efforts to cloak a inter-industry horse-trading exercise in the trappings of a public undertaking, with nominal participation from all "affected industries." In reality, the representatives were hand-picked by the conveners of the BPDG to minimize any dissent, as is evidenced by the high degree of similarity between the original proposal brought to the group by its conveners and the final report that the co-chairs unilaterally present herein as the group's findings.
Throughout the process, the absence of any formal charter or process afforded the co-chairs the opportunity to manipulate the rules of the group to suit their true purpose while maintaining its illusory openness, as when the scope of the group's discussions was summarily expanded to encompass all unauthorized redistribution of feature films, as opposed to unauthorized redistribution over the Internet.
