Some digital rights advocates cheered the appointment of
longtime copyright-reform champion Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.
Boucher is taking over
for Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who will now head the Energy and the Environment subcommittee, the lawmakers announced Thursday.
As a longtime proponent of consumers' rights to lawfully copy films,
books and other material, Boucher is considered a likely opponent of any entertainment industry efforts to restrict the Web. Among other measures, he is likely to oppose attempts to require Internet
service providers to filter networks for pirated material.
Boucher also has tried to revamp the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to make it more consumer-friendly. Two years ago, Boucher and
another lawmaker, John Doolittle (R-Calif.), introduced the Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship Act (H.R. 1201), which would have softened the DMCA's anti-circumvention
provisions. Those rules generally prohibit consumers from defeating digital rights management software aimed at limiting their ability to make copies--although the Copyright Office grants exemptions
in some circumstances.
Boucher's bill would have specified that the anti-circumvention rules do not apply in certain situations, such as when the purpose of getting around the restrictions was to
access a work in order to criticize it or report about it. The bill also would have provided that anti-circumvention rules do not apply if the purpose of breaking the lock was to enable ad-skipping.
The measure, supported by digital rights group Public Knowledge, was opposed by groups like the Institute for Policy Innovation, a think tank founded by conservative Dick Armey (a former
Republican Congressmember from Texas).
In 2002, Boucher authored a strident column extolling the benefits of fair use, which was published in CNet. "From the college student who photocopies a
page from a library book or prints an article from a newspaper's Web site for use in writing a report, to the newspaper reporter excerpting materials from a document for a story, to the typical
television viewer who records a broadcast program for viewing at a later time, we all depend on the ability to make limited copies of copyrighted material without having to pay a fee or obtain prior
approval of the copyright owner," he wrote. "In fact, fair-use rights to obtain and use a wide array of information are essential to the exercise of First Amendment rights."
The advocacy group
Public Knowledge was quick to praise the lawmaker Thursday, calling him "a dedicated defender of consumer rights in the digital age."
At the same time, some consumer privacy advocates could be
losing a strong ally in the subcommittee with the departure of Markey, who was considered one of the most pro-privacy lawmakers on the Hill.
Last year, when NebuAd forged deals with telecoms and
cable companies to serve people ads based on their Web activity, Markey led a Congressional
investigation into those arrangements. The pressure eventually resulted in NebuAd suspending its plans.
Boucher also supports net neutrality initiatives, as does President-elect Barack Obama.
But some of the momentum to pass new neutrality laws dissipated following last year's Federal Communications Commission decision to sanction Comcast for violating neutrality principles. In that case, the FCC found that it
had the power to enforce net neutrality principles even without new legislation.