Seems a lot of palms are being greased up on the hill
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080911-copyright-bill-blasted-as-enormous-gift-to-big-content.htmlThe United States Congress returned to work this week, and senators appear to have copyright on the brain: A broad intellectual property enforcement bill introduced in July is slated for markup by the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, and another aimed at cracking down on piracy overseas was introduced Wednesday.
As Ars reported in July, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), enacts a potpourri of measures long sought by content industries. Most significant of these is a provision allowing for the Department of Justice to bring civil suits against IP infringers, with any damages won to be turned over to content owners.
A second IP enforcement bill introduced Wednesday by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Max Baucus (D-MT) would target foreign countries whose lax IP enforcement has landed them on the US "priority watch list," direct the US Trade Representative to develop country-by-country "action plans" for stepping up enforcement, and authorize the president to impose a variety of sanctions on noncompliant nations, ranging from curtailment of financial aid to revocation of favorable trade rules.
Dont forget those names above folks, you can be sure they are getting donations of one sort or the other from the recording and movie industry cartels to help undermine democracy for a price.
