Clinton & Obama on Technology
Broadband
Freedom to Tinker has analyses of both Obama and Hillary Clinton. He makes a good argument for justifying government investment in broadband infrastructure (and he is a self-professed member of the "laissez-faire, free-market right" and characterizes the "Clinton position ... at its admittedly high level of vagueness, as being roughly on target."
Clinton calls for "tax incentives to encourage broadband deployment in underserved areas." Obama's position is far more detailed and ambitious -- although he doesn't speak to the funding side of the equation.
Two thumbs up.
Net Neutrality
Obama has a clear position, and one that I endorse: telecoms should not be allowed to charge fees that "privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others.” This position extends the fundamental concept of the common carrier law (which enables telephone interoperability, or example).
TechCrunch shows that Clinton favors Net neutrality, but it's not on her innovation page. It is, however, on a January 2007 blog post. Shame on her communication staff.
Two thumbs up.
Copyright
Here, I ran into rough sailing. Using Google to search the candidate sites, I found this from Clinton, May 2007, Silicon Valley -- it does not inspire me because it seems mired in the past. Someone give her Wikinomics so she can see that the really big intellectual property holders are opening their patent lockers.
And if we're going to reap the benefits of innovation, we have to take every step to ensure that our trading partners adhere to a standard of intellectual property protection similar to what we have in the United States.
I know that intellectual property piracy costs companies millions of dollars every year and that piracy and counterfeiting hit our high-tech companies more than any other sector in the economy. So let's get back to free and open scientific enquiry and the promise and provenance of a free and open society, and let's also take the steps necessary to protect the results of that free and open enquiry.
Obama seems in the same historical camp when looking abroad (someone give him a history book -- the one that shows how the young United States infringed on European author rights):
The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that in 2005, more than nine of every 10 DVDs sold in China were illegal copies. The U.S. Trade Representative said 80 percent of all counterfeit products seized at U.S. borders still come from China. Barack Obama will work to ensure intellectual property is protected in foreign markets, and promote greater cooperation on international standards that allow our technologies to compete everywhere.
Intellectual property is to the digital age what physical goods were to the industrial age. Barack Obama believes we need to update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated.
Two thumbs down. (Someone should send these two graphs to Lessig.)
I also learned that both Clinton and Obama advocate increased transparency in government communication with citizens, a good thing. Obama specifically mentions opening the patent process to "citizen review" (a trial is ongoing). And Clinton emphasizes the need for public investment in R&D, something that has declined dramatically in recent decades.
Read more: from Clinton, her position on innovation; from Obama, his technology and innovation white paper.