Tech activists alarmed by RSC retraction of copyright brief

The Republican Study Committee delighted the netroots community on November 16 when it issued a policy brief on copyright law that was friendly to their views. Fast forward 24 hours. The conservative group retracted the report on November 17, setting off a firestorm on tech blogs.

“These are very odd circumstances,” said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a public policy group. The paper, authored by RSC staffer Derek Khanna, suggested that copyright law is too tilted toward protecting content owners, and should be changed to allow for greater flexibility in sharing, shorten copyright terms and punish false claims. The tech community hailed the brief from the conservative policy shop, which is not known for backing such proposals. “The Republican Study Committee released a report on Friday that is so brilliant and visionary it's difficult for me to believe it was written by Republicans,” a Daily Kos blogger wrote. The retraction sparked an equal measure of consternation. “Why did the RSC retract it’s awesome paper on copyright?” tweeted Patrick Ruffini, a Republican political consultant who helped lead the battle against online piracy legislation. An RSC spokesman said November 18 the brief was retracted because it did not balance various views on copyright law. Sohn and other tech activists suspect that the entertainment industry weighed in on the report after it was published, though no one from the industry has said anything publicly about it.