MemeMachineGo!

There’s a horrendously bad law proposed currently, and another pretty bad one.

Orrin Hatch’s Induce Act would make it illegal to “aid, abet or induce copyright infringement.” This would undermine the Supreme Court’s Betamax decision that a product is legal if it has “substantial non-infringing uses.” It could make the iPod illegal, as a litigant could assert that its ability to play pirated MP3s aided, abetted and induced copyright infringement.

Basically, it could cripple business’ ability to innovate, for fear of litigation. See Cory Doctorow’s speech to Microsoft for more on why letting Hollywood dictate technology would be bad for everyone.

Meanwhile, the Senate has passed the PIRATE act which would, among other things, potentially send MP3 pirates to jail, and let your tax dollars pay to pursue what have always been civil cases.

I don’t have much patience for the endless apologies for P2P copyright infringers as doing no harm, and even helping copyright holders. It doesn’t matter whether it does no harm. It doesn’t even matter if it helps. A copyright holder has the right to decide how his or her intellectual property gets copied, not any of 10 million other people with a P2P client and an Internet connection.

But given that our prisons are so overcrowded that violent offenders get released early, I don’t think sending file swappers to prison would make the world a better place.

Please write your Senators about the INDUCE Act, and your Representative about the PIRATE Act (there isn’t currently a house version of the bill.) The links above to the EFF’s Action Center articles on the law make it trivially easy to send them email about it. Consider joining the EFF or subscribing to their Action Center alerts while you’re in the neighborhood. They’re doing important work.