Here we go again folks, the fake figures and paid politicians are out in force again.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071206-congress-copyright-reform-seize-computers-boost-penalties-spend-money.htmlA bipartisan group of Congressmen (and one woman) yesterday introduced a major bill aimed at boosting US intellectual property laws and the penalties that go along with them. While much of the legislation targets industrial counterfeiting and knockoff drugs, it also allows the government to seize people's computers.
The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP... groan) Act of 2007 has the backing of many of the most powerful politicians on the House Judiciary Committee, including John Conyers (D-MI), Lamar Smith (R-TX), and "Hollywood" Howard Berman (D-CA).
Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, said in a statement, "seizing expensive manufacturing equipment used for large-scale infringement from a commercial pirate may be appropriate. Seizing a family's general-purpose computer in a download case, as this bill would allow, is not appropriate."
In addition, she protests the increase in "already extraordinary copyright damages" and calls for damages to be linked more closely to actual harm suffered by copyright holders.
When draconian penalties are heaped on a small beer civil crime the rule of law falls into disrepute, more so since the proposals are normally voted into place by politicians who take "donations" from those parties (the media industry) likely to benefit from such legislation.
The real danger in this legislation once more goes unoticed by most folks reading the article, notice the burden of chasing down civil copyright infringers is quietly tryin to be handed on to those groups tasked with halting criminal activity ?
The finished result of this is to save the recording industry tens of millions in bringing cases to court and pass that burden over to the tax payers, yes folks now you will be asked to fork out more of your wages to the government to "shut down" those hard core terrorists (aka filesharers) who listen to mp3 files they obtained from an online friend, great backdoor work by the enemies of the consumer dont you think folks ?
