And the photography associations are wrong.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/yet-another-year-fighting-bad-copyright-bill-2019-year-review

All due respect to the PPA and ASMP – two associations that I was a member of – they’re at best misguided, if they think copyright can be fixed in this way. At worst, they’ve lost their moral compass.

It’s sad to see “pro” photographers lower themselves to corporate rent seeker status, as if they are deserving of special privilege.

This turd of a bill was not debated, at all, in the House of Representatives and has received scant media attention. No wonder, because it’s hard to imagine any popular support for this.

Not to mention the usurpation of our judicial system with an administrative tribunal that is probably, oh, not so Constitutional.

I suspect this law, should Senator Wyden concede, will be contested in court. You know, a proper public court of law. Not an ad hoc unelected bureaucratic tribunal outside the judicial system, that denies due process.

I sympathize with photographers whose images were commercially used, without license. Its happened to me, too.

But there are myriad reasons why their old business model isn’t working like it used to. Testing the dark waters of digital dystopia and unconstitutional tribunals is no way to make an obsolete model work again.

A bipartisan bill – again, passed without debate – is not a rationale for legitimacy, in of itself.

Time and again we’ve seen how Congress taints its legacy with one bad law, after another. Poor judgment is something politicians are richly rewarded for.

By now most Americans should understand that bipartisan = everyone gets screwed.

This bad law will do nothing for photography itself, which is what should truly concern anyone who identifies as a Photographer.