Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, where do I begin? The gentlewoman is aware that in previous Congresses we have held hearings, and this bill is not new, but in fact is in its third iteration before the Congress. Additionally, she is right, we did schedule a markup, and the gentlewoman objected. We waited, and we scheduled it again. A quorum being present, by a vote of 19-4, overwhelmingly it was passed out of the Judiciary Committee, the committee of jurisdiction for copyright. Just for the purpose of the Speaker, I want to read one clause of the Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8: ``[The Congress shall have power] to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.'' Mr. Speaker, that is a solemn obligation of the Constitution. For nearly 250 years, we have made sure that, in fact, authors, musicians, anyone producing copyrighted material, have had protection. We have not, historically, even partially opened that up. In this case, we have gone much further on this legislation. We have provided a form of fair use. Any citizen can go online and read any part of any of these documents, thousands of pages. They can look at them, they can take notes. They can do any number of things. What they can't do is distribute it to others, circumventing the copyright.…”