It will prove interesting to see the results of the election as they bubble up.

Election’s Impact on Info/Law:

In the House, it appears most likely that Rep. Howard Berman will take over the chairmanship of the subcommittee that handles intellectual property law. As National Journal’s Congress Daily noted, we can expect him to ‘protect his nearby Hollywood interests by cracking down on piracy and protecting against copyright infringement of TV, music and movie productions.’ In general terms, that means restrictive IP law that favors content producers and rightsholders and hostility toward flexibility or expansion of fair use. That’s the bad news for Info/Law. The good news is that Congressman Ed Markey, a champion of consumer-oriented telecom and internet policy (and sponsor of the network neutrality amendment in the House earlier this year) will take over the subcommittee with the most power over these issues; the full Committee on Energy & Commerce will be helmed by John Dingell, who is pretty good on telecom as well. In addition, Rick Boucher, another consistent advocate for balanced information policy, particularly fair use and library concerns, will be a very senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee (and possibly on Berman’s subcommittee). Finally, there is reason to hope education-oriented Democrats like Dale Kildee may pay attention to the serious and growing problems relating to educational uses of digital content.