andrekandre
> In a voice vote earlier this week, the House of
Representatives passed H.R. 6028, the "Legislative Branch
Agencies Clarification Act."
wow, i had always assumed actual laws have to pass a
recorded vote, but its not true...from wiki: > In
Congress, "the vast majority of actions decided by a voice
vote" are ones for which "a strong or even overwhelming
majority favors one side", or even unanimous consent.
Members can request a division of the assembly (a rising
vote, where each sides rise in turn to be counted), and
one-fifth of members can demand a recorded vote on any
question, after the chair announces the result of a voice
vote.
> It is estimated that more than 95 percent of the
resolutions passed by state legislatures are passed by a
unanimous voice vote, many without discussion; this is
because resolutions are often on routine, noncontroversial
matters, such as commemorating important events or
recognizing groups.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_vote#United_States
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anigbrowl
Odd that the article doesn't mention parties at all,
although perhaps this was in an attempt to avoid
accusations of partisanship that might ensue from stating
facts.Anyway, a quick look at
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/60
28... indicates that all 4 sponsors of the bill are
Republicans. The Actions tab seems to indicated that the
bill got only 12 minutes of debate before being passed,; I
hope this is an artifact of how the page is updated rather
than the actual time spent on considering it.
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> bigstrat2003
The article doesn't mention parties because it's
irrelevant. A bad bill is bad on its merits, not
because of who has brought it about.
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> > thereisnospork
For those of us at home who need to decide which
team to root for its very much relevant when and
what bills a party sponsors.
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OutOfHere
Anything that destroys copyright is a good thing. It is a
societal evil.
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panny
I usually agree with the EFF on things, but after reading
their linked
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/05/us-copyright-offices
-d... I couldn't disagree more. An LLM is a predict the
next word algorithm. If the model is overfitting, it's
basically copy paste. There have been several documented
instances where that happened and full GPL code, including
headers and attribution were copy/pasted by the "AI."AI is
essentially copy paste with more steps. The part that AI
companies use to defend this is ?how are we supposed to
decide how much each author deserves? They try to wave
this away, but their own model can tell them. Their models
work off of weights. They can determine how much each work
contributed based on those weights, so it's dishonest for
them to argue it isn't possible. The way the models are
engineered now don't make this possible, but that's
intentional and we can all recognize that. They throw up
their hands and claim it's not possible because they
simply don't want to pay.The most infurating thing however
is how AI companies sidestep the IP rights of authors, but
then claim to own those IP rights when their own generated
output leaks. Anthropic filed DMCA takedowns on the leaked
claude code repos, claiming ownership over something they
explicitly have stated is almost entirely AI generated as
part of their marketing. They take code, mix it up just
enough to scrub away the GPL or whatever license belongs
on it, then try to claim ownership of the result, in spite
of the Copyright Office repeatedly stating that AI
generated works have no copyright protection at all.
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> anematode
Agreed. Moreover, the authors of copyright law could
never have anticipated this type and scale of abuse.
Maybe the companies are legally in the right, maybe
not, but that's irrelevant for the question of whether
it's ethical. The EFF's post definitely goes against
their mission to "ensure that technology supports
freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the
world."
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phendrenad2
I don't really understand the hypothetical problems here.
"The copyright office head would be a presidential
appointee, which could make the copyright office more
political". I mean, I guess? Are people worried they're
going to start selectively enforcing copyright law? But
they don't enforce copyright law right now...
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> akamaka
It's not hypothetical at all. The FCC is currently
being used for political attacks:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/28/media/abc-fcc-disney-li
censes...Those who are under attack happen to also be
the biggest copyrighter holders, so this would open up
a new avenue of attack.
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> > mohamedkoubaa
It's not hypothetical nor an unintended
consequence. Most likely this is the point
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> > XorNot
Conversely you're already not dealing with that,
so the letter and spirit of the law are both being
ignored and the American voter doesn't care.
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> > > WarOnPrivacy
> the American voter doesn't care.The American
voter doesn't know because copyright misuse
and malfeasance is on a long list of
public-impacting topics that news orgs have
rigorously ignored for generations.
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> hightrix
>Are people worried they're going to start selectively
enforcing copyright law?Yes. Not only that, but to
grant copyright protection only to those that are
allied with/loyal to/bribe the current
administration.This would have massive, far reaching
effects.
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> plandis
> Are people worried they're going to start
selectively enforcing copyright law?Yes.
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> z3c0
Never gotten any emails from lawyers, I see.Copyright
laws are heavily enforced, only selectively.
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> dyauspitr
Are you kidding? If there's something in there they
don't like I don't put it past this administration to
break it internally and then make a case for shutting
it down. This whole thing sounds very similar to the
postal service situation...
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> > vjvjvjvjghv
They will break the system and use it for their
friends. No way they are shutting it down. There
is way too much money to be made in selective
enforcement.
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> > roenxi
> Are you kidding? If there's something in there
they don't like I don't put it past this
administration to break it internally and then
make a case for shutting it down.Might be a win?
The copyright system is one of the major suspects
for why US industry ended up crippled and replaced
by Asian labour refusing to respect US IP laws to
their significant advantage. To say nothing of the
corrosive influence on culture of locking down
music and stories. The biggest IP success in the
last 50 years seems to have been Open Source
because they built a framework inside the
copyright system to achieve the opposite outcome
and build a thriving industry despite the lawyers
trying to encourage them in alternative
directions.The people defending the copyright
system should have to keep making their case until
they come up with something persuasive for how
they're helping.
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> > > jaggederest
Tongue in cheek, but the copyright system
should only last for 12 years, with one
straightforward renewal, without specific
reauthorization. Just like copyright in works,
in my opinion
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> > > echelon
> The copyright system is one of the major
suspects for why US industry ended up crippled
and replaced by Asian labour refusing to
respect US IP laws to their significant
advantage.Expand on this.Wasn't it instead our
desire to be the world's reserve currency and
rely on cheap imports? You can't be both a net
exporter and the world's top reserve
currency.You have to run trade deficits if you
want to export dollars.
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> > > > roenxi
It comes down to comparative advantages
more than anything else and the US raising
the cost (in some sense outright banning)
people from deploying good ideas in an
industrial way seems like it'd be a
significant comparative disadvantage to
attracting investment. And a much bigger
deal than the practical reality that the
US imports more than it
exports.Maintaining an import-dependent
economy might be a factor, economies are
complicated. But there isn't a fundamental
reason that taking in more stuff than gets
exported should mean that Asia has to be
more successful. If anything, a country in
a position to import more than it exports
should be seeing big jumps in living
standards, rather the gains going to a
country notionally taking the bad end of
the bargain. And there are some easy
resolutions to being a net importer and
while having a strong industrial economy -
import raw materials, make stuff that
isn't for export as an example.
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> > > z3c0
I mean, I agree with your general point that
copyright might need to be reconsidered, but
this doesn't seem like an attempt to
reconsider it. It's rather transparently
enabling further cronyism.
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billfor
This is a one-sided article which does not discuss the
opposing view, or the reason why they thought congress
should appoint. Ironically, if this became law then it
might have prevented Trump from removing the librarian as
he attempted in 2025 (still pending in the supreme court).
It also includes a term limit of 10
years.https://www.stoneslaw.net/legislative-branch-agencie
s-clarif...
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