As Michael Kinsley tells us, a “gaffe” is what we call it when a politician tells the truth. A couple of days ago, the Republican Study Committee committed some truth in a widely praised position paper called Three Myths about Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix It. In that paper, author Derek S. Khanna argues for such level-headed changes as:

Statutory damages reform

Expand fair use

Punish false copyright claims

Heavily limit the terms for copyright, and create disincentives for renewal

Well, as we also know, no good deed goes unpunished. In less time than it takes to say “Boston Strangler”, the RIAA and MPAA check-writers convinced the Republican Study Committee that the paper escaped “without adequate review” (that is, without review by the RIAA and MPAA). The RSC link to the paper now connects to a blank page, but you can find the original report here and here. For excellent summaries of the report, see Mike Masnick’s original Techdirt article and Peter Brantley’s blog for Publishers Weekly.

/Steve/