Right after the Presidential election last week, Chris Sprigman and Kal Raustiala penned an opinion piece suggesting that one way the Republicans could "reset", and actually attract the youth vote, would be to become the party of copyright reform. We had actually wondered if that was going to happen back during the SOPA fight, when it was the Republicans who bailed on the bill, while most of those who kept supporting it were Democrats. Since then, however, there hadn't been much movement. Until now. Late on Friday, the Republican Study Committee, which is the caucus for the House Republicans, released an amazing document debunking various myths about copyright law and suggesting key reforms.

Of course, this lasted all of about 24 hours...

Update: Wow. It took less than 24 hours for the RSC to fold to Hollywood pressure. They have now retracted the report and attempted to claim that it was not properly vetted.

So here is the big question - what do Republicans really want?

1. Free markets
2. A way to appeal to younger voters
3. A way to siphon off some of the money Hollywood donates to Democrats

(Tonight I'm probably going to have a nightmare in which I'm asked to make a political choice between 4th amendment protections and limited copyrights.)