(in memoriam) Jack Valenti

Dan, I’m not sure he *could* have been on your side: he may have worked for Hollywood but I’m afraid he *believed* what he was saying (I think that’s why he was so good at it). I think the Berkman Center, for instance, was just as biased on copyright issues as the Hollywood cartel — just in the other direction (I think that’s a shame — no academic group should a priori advocate one way or the other; that’s NOT academia, that’s lobbying…) D.
(http://citmedia.org/blog/2007/04/28/jack-valenti-wish-hed-been-on-our-side/#comment-149636)

aside:

I misspelled my new address so it's not posted on Dan's blog yet -- here's the duplicate

Dan,

The way I see it, the idea that in the long run “extreme fair use, “ala Lessig for instance, helps scholarship is shaky at best (it’s NOT a balanced academic position but something interested private parties, especially attorneys such as Lessig, are free to advocate *outside* of academic settings…).

But even if this wasn’t an issue, your argument seems to amount to claiming that whatever would help scholarship would be a “principled stand” for an “academic-based organization”… (the way I see it, there wouldn’t be anything “principled” about it — just self -serving…)

I think that, on the contrary, a valid principled academic stand on the issue would mean doing a *neutral* evaluation of the situation and… arriving at… wherever that would lead! That’s why I don’t think you CAN have an “academic based” advocacy organization (such as the Berkman Center) — I believe it is a perversion of academia and a perversion of true scholarship… (Harvard should have told the Berkmans to take their money to Washington if they wanted to fund advocacy…)

Delia
(http://citmedia.org/blog/2007/04/28/jack-valenti-wish-hed-been-on-our-side/#comment-149702)