U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is up to his old secret trickery, this time on Senate Bill 1273 the CASE Act. We need to do something about it.
The CASE Act is the bipartisan copyright small claims legislation that is inches from becoming the law of the land. The CASE Act establishes the first and only meaningful relief against Big Tech for independent creators. The long-time Senator and swamp meister is the only Senator to oppose S. 1273 which comes as no surprise. Senator Wyden has represented the state of Oregon in the Congress since 1981–40 years. And he’s been screwing creators every step of the way. We need to stop him.
You may have run across him over the years in various debates on many progressive issues that might appeal to you. Don’t be shocked he’s on the wrong side of this one–he’s very clever about hiding his tracks. Wyden is scared to death to come out in the open on the square and defend his deceptive shenanigans against creators. We can’t allow him to get away with it again.
Despite his support for some progressive causes, MTP readers will remember that we always run across Senator Wyden in one consistent position: Doing everything he can to slow down, obfuscate, detract and pick apart any–and I mean any–artist rights legislation that comes to the U.S. Senate, particularly copyright legislation. But he shies away from doing it in public. Swamp creatures like the dark. We need to deny him that hiding place.
Senator Wyden is running this strategy again with the CASE Act, and he must be stopped. The CASE Act codifies the idea of a copyright small claims alternative to unaffordable federal copyright litigation. Copyright small claims has been analyzed and debated for over 10 years. (See my backgrounder.) It has finally been codified in the CASE Act legislation that has already passed the House of Representatives and been reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously by Senator Wyden’s own colleagues, such as the bill’s Senate coauthors Dick Durbin and John Kennedy.
How has Wyden stopped the bill? Through his usual guile, deceit and deception. Due to a procedural trick in the Senate, Wyden can place a secret “hold” on the Senate version of the CASE Act (S. 1273) and stop it from coming to a vote with no accountability. Why would he do this?
Because he’s afraid it might pass. And that would just never do.
Understand this–it’s not that Wyden is leading the charge of a bunch of Senators on a controversial bill. Wyden is the only one, or as the photographers say, he is #justone.
He’s not leading a charge of Senators–instead he’s using trickery to lead a long line of special interests, campaign contributors and Google shills to do one thing on the CASE Act–slow it down so it dies without a vote.
That’s right. Wyden would use a procedural trick and thimblerig to deny fundamental fairness to creators. He would deny creators a shred of a chance to protect themselves against the data traffickers who see books and lyrics as keywords and photographs as biometric search results.
But he also would deny his Senate colleagues a chance to vote on the CASE Act.
Who the hell does he think he is?
Wyden is denying his colleagues an opportunity to begin fixing the horrors and abuses of the broken DMCA like they have with Big Tech’s other safe harbor that also protected Big Tech’s human trafficking partners. And guess who Senator Wyden stood with on the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act?
Oregon creators are mystified why this well-known progressive has sold them out to Big Tech–AGAIN. Oregonians have already figured him out and the next election for this career swamp creature will not be a layup.
But he’s not stupid. Wyden hopes you’ll remember Senator Wyden the consumer advocate and not Senator Wyden the shill for the biggest corporations in commercial history. A shill for the data lords that run their satanic data centers in Oregon so they can suck down Oregon’s hydroelectric power at cheap rates thanks to Chairman Ron Wyden of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
The following map from The Oregonian explains why Senator Wyden (a Palo Alto High School grad) could give a rats patootie about a bunch of creators in his adopted state–pretty swampy stuff.
Senator Wyden wants to deceive creators and especially Oregonians into believing that he’s a crusader for progressive causes. He wants them to ignore their kitchen table issues like the CASE Act. He wants them to gaslight them into ignoring the facts as he digs his swampy claws into their backs on the issues that affect their life’s work and energize their souls.
Big Tech, and especially Google, want to stop the copyright small claims legislation for a very simple reason–Senators Durbin and Kennedy and the Senate bill’s many cosponsors want to empower the little guy against the robber barons and the data lords. And the data lords like creators powerless, unorganized and broke.
Pick up the phone and call Senator Ron Wyden at the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Tell him to take his hold off of S. 1273. And then ask your senators to support S. 1273 the CASE Act.
Tell Ron Wyden to keep his hands in his own pockets for a change.
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