What follows below is the text of an email that I sent to John Kerry today trying to get his response on the IICA act and on general copyright policy issues.
One of the things that has driven the American economy over the past decade is the relentless advance of technology. Much of this technology was conceived and developed by the people who understand it best, the technologists. Recently, Congress has seen fit to intervene in this progress by proposing restrictions on the development of technology. Specifically, I’m speaking of the IICA (Inducing Infringements of Copyright Act) proposed by Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. This current act would make technology that could possibly be used to violate copyright illegal. Thus, such wondrous devices as the VCR and the iPod would have never seen the light of day under such a bill. One could even argue that a pencil would be illegal under the legislation.
As a technologist, and a student in the Engineering and Public Policy Ph.D. program at Carnegie Mellon University, the creation of new technology and ways to share media is of great importance to me. In your acceptance speech you even made reference to the ability to store and entire library on a chip, which would be arguably illegal under such a bill.
My question for you is straight forward. Do you support the IICA bill as it is currently going through congress? If it passed during your term as president would you veto such a bill? What is your view on the eternal extension of copyright through bills such as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act?
These are all very important issues to me and a large segment of the younger, more tech-saavy population, that have not been addressed up to this point. Thank you for your timely response.
Patrick Wagstrom
Pittsburgh, PA