Finally, some good news from the prez election front--ZDNET is reporting that Kerry may "defang" the DMCA. The author, McCullagh, offers a pretty balanced view of the developments--while Kerry's campaign has at least hinted that it may be time to reform some copyright law, the Bush campaign has been adamantly clear: Defend the DMCA at any cost.

The actual comments from a previous ZDNET article:

Said Bush: "I strongly support efforts to protect intellectual property and will continue to work with Congress to ensure all intellectual property is properly protected...We must vigorously enforce intellectual-property protections and prosecute the violators, not the technology."

"I do not condone the illegal sharing of copyrighted material," Kerry said, though he is "open to examining whether legislative action is necessary to ensure that a person who lawfully receives a transmission of a digital work may back up a copy of it for archival purposes."

This is a small concession, granted, and not nearly as strong of a position as we really need to start reforming copyright law, but at least Kerry acknowledges that we have a major problem here. I don't think that problem will become as painfully obvious until the RIAA's next blood purge, when even more people end up in court or jail, but at least we have some hint here that Kerry may side with the people (instead of Bush's "The corporates are always right, you terrorist" approach). Then again, maybe Bush can figure out how the RIAA and MPAA's war on the American people somehow creates more jobs? I suppose it does provide more jobs for lawyers.

Unfortunately, the author concludes with a question mark. We really don't know what side Kerry would take here because copyright and patent reform really isn't an important enough issue to warrant an opinion, though the votes of people like me really hang on this issue. If I heard Bush say, "The RIAA has gone far enough; it's time to put them in check," he'd have my vote, regardless of his other poor decisions. As it is, though, at least Kerry seems "open" to the idea of copyright reform.

What do you think? Would Kerry be more likely to reform copyright law than Bush?