S. 3325, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Act of 2008, is one of those bills written by an industry for the sole benefit of that industry.  The RIAA and MPAA are currently trying to stampede this through Congress without anybody noticing.

Among it’s provisions to drastically increase copyright enforcement at the expense of fair use rights is allowing the federal government to sue citizens in civil, not criminal, court on behalf of Big Content.  Not only does the RIAA want your grandma’s house, they want you to pay for their legal bills to steal it!

Why does it matter whether the prosecutions are civil rather than criminal?  Because civil cases are decided by a preponderence of the evidence, not guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Big Content is an industry that can’t figure out how to deal with the technological changes that have made their stranglehold on making and distributing professional level music and video something akin to Ford trying to bring back the Model T.  Their business plan no longer works, and their response has been to sue their customers, and try to convince the public that piracy, and not changes in the market,  are responsible for their problems.

Anyone in Congress who votes for this bill should definitely be considered bought and paid for, and any of them who vote for this bill and ever express a belief in “free enterprise” will have given you indisputable evidence which end they are talking out of.   Way beyond a reasonable doubt.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 5:23 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.