Tech at Night: Regulation picking winners and losers in television and radio. Let's deregulate both and also reform copyright.

Tech at Night

Next time you wonder why there is such a push to pick winners and losers with regulation, remember that industries like broadcast TV don’t like to become buggy whip makers, so they have to go after firms like Aereo who innovate and threaten traditional revenue streams.

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Which is why, as much as I do agree that there are a number of piecemeal copyright reforms we should make, I disagree that fixing radio regulation isn’t a good idea. We have a system in place now called ‘compulsory licensing’ which is designed to rig the marketplace. Getting to a free market is a valuable thing. Copyright is probably too strong, but this isn’t where we need to trim it back, at all.

Let’s walk and chew gum at the same time. Let’s take on targeted copyright reform as Derek Khanna suggests, while also deregulating radio/music licensing.

Sorry, I don’t weep for Edward Snowden’s ISP, Lavabit, especially when it’s been clear all along that Lavabit’s trying to play stuff up for dramatic effect, to try to be a martyr.

This outrage over Snapchat is stupid. If you don’t want your photos to be seen, don’t put them on the Internet. Snapchat cooperating with police shouldn’t be an issue.

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Drawing the lines on offensive and defensive cyberwar policy isn’t easy. And honestly we probably don’t know enough about what’s actually being done, to be sure.

So a criminal online terror cell threatens a city, and Google pulls the video from Youtube. Apparently we’re supposed to be outraged. I just can’t help but remember when outside pressure was brought to bear to demand that the case against George Zimmerman be re-opened.

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