2016 letter to U.S. Copyright Office

by Joshua Gay Contributions — Published on Mar 07, 2016 01:12 PM

March 3, 2016

Kevin R. Amer
Senior Counsel for Policy and International Affairs
United States Copyright Office
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave. SE
Washington, D.C. 20559-6009

Dear Mr. Amer:

Re: Docket No. 2015–8, Section 1201 Study: Notice and Request for Public Comment

On February 12, 2016 we spoke with your office requesting the abilityto submit a comment to the United States Copyright Office in a way that did notrequire the use of proprietary JavaScript software via theregulations.gov Web site. We explained that as an organization, weare unable to run proprietary software from regulations.gov formoral and ethical reasons; the same reasons behind our 501(c)(3) status.

You responded to our request on February 16 in a letter stating thatthe United States Copyright Office "cannot allow submission ofcomments outside the regulations.gov system on the basis of yourobjection to the use of proprietary software." In addition, you statedthat one reason your office was denying our request was that doing somay "give rise to requests for separate submission procedures from anynumber of groups and individuals."

Your agency already allows two submission procedures: youdo allow some people to submit comments on paper, and the restuse regulations.gov. We have simply requested the ability tosubmit via paper, not our own separate submission procedure.

Further, your objection brushes aside serious moral and ethicalobjections that we and many thousands of free software supportersshare. We object to all proprietary (or "nonfree") software, which is any softwarethat denies users the right to study, modify or distributemodified versions of that software. Such restrictions prevent usersfrom fully enjoying rights they should have to the programs running on their own computers. When software is proprietary, that meansthat some company claims ownership of it, and through that ownershipclaim, imposes restrictions on users as to how they can or can't usethe software. When the government requires citizens to run such software,it is requiring that they accept the specific and arbitrary termsimposed by that company. Citizens should not be required to engagewith any particular private company in order to participate in publicproceedings or use any governmental Web sites or networkservice. Ensuring that users are free to study, share, modify, andreshare any software they receive is the morally right thing to do.The Free Software Foundation provides an overview of the dangers ofproprietary JavaScript in particular, as well as the methods forfreely licensing it, athttps://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.

In the case of regulations.gov,the JavaScript files and other data that users are required todownload come from multiple servers that are controlled bydifferent private companies. There are several JavaScriptfiles users are asked to download and run, and the total length ofthose programs exceeds 750,000 characters. These files have been"minified" and "compiled" so that they are made as short as possible,optimized to be understood by a machine, and not by a human. Having tosend and receive data from multiple entities and run complexproprietary programs creates increased security risks forusers. Further, it is not clear why any of this complexity isnecessary, since the HTML standard makes it possible to submit a Webform without the use of JavaScript at all.

We hope you will reconsider your decision, and either accept written comments from those who object on moral grounds to the regulations.gov system, or provide a simpler digital system that does not force the public to blindly use a particular company's proprietary software to participate.