[governance] PRO-IP and PIRATE Acts Fused Into New Bill

[Jeffrey A. Williams]

All,

  Another actual issue instead of endless process arguments:
See:
 http://www.eff.org/support I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property 
writes "Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) 
have just
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080725-senator-fuses-controversial-ip-bills-into-big-bad-package.html
sponsored a new bill, the 
Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, which 
would combine the worst parts of the
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/07/0647207&tid=149
PRO-IP Act and the
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/24/1329218&tid=103
PIRATE Act. The basic idea is pretty simple: expand the Federal
government to create something like the Department of Homeland
Security for IP. The Copyright Czar then polices the internet and clogs
the courts with thousands of civil lawsuits against individual
infringers so the RIAA doesn't have to.  Feel free to
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
contact your representatives with your feelings about
this bill. Right now, they believe
http://arstechnica.com/news.media/Senate_Enforcement_IP_Act_7-24-08-1.pdf
the bill (PDF) will 'protect jobs.'"

Frankly I cant see how this bill protects jobs at all.  I can see how
it might create additional staff jobs for the USG at the taxpayers
expense.  Seems to me that Copywriter's protection is the job of
the Copywrite owner/holder as it has traditionally been for many
decades.
This bill would seem to reverse that and make it largely the job of
a to be newly created government department at the expense of
the Tax payer.  A hidden tax increase?!  I wonder it the courts
are or will be prepared for the onslaught.  Given recent judiciary
hearings/caucases indicating a shortage of Judges, my guess is the
courts are not nearly prepared.

  If one was to read between the lines here a bit and is armed with
some historical case information, one might surmise that due to a
significant string of court defeats by the RIAA, and for good cause,
as well as the USTR having difficulty enforcing Patent's for
perscription drugs being reporduced under TRIPS agreements reducing 
the cost to consumers but also reducing huge profits to US drug 
companies, that this legislation is aimed to rise the cost bar for
litigation by defendants in an effort to price the "Average Joe" 
out of receiving actual justice.

  I can't say that I would support this bill...  I hope our members
and others will see this bill in a similar light.  I think there are
some rats in the old wood pile here, and their initials are
RIAA/MPAA/ACTA.

Regards,

Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
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