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U.S. Declares War on Intellectual Property Theft

Posted by samzenpus on from the go-get-them dept.

bblazer writes "Reuters is running a story about a new US effort to stop intellectual property theft. From the article "The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday outlined what it called its most sweeping crackdown on bootleg DVDs, fake designer goods, illegal music downloads and counterfeit drugs." It also goes on to say that media (movies and music) is highly affected, but so are products like batteries, baby food and Viagra."

4 of 643 comments (clear)

  1. Re:And legality? by jkabbe · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Are you suggesting that the government stop trying to aprehend and prosecute hard drug users/dealers?

    The problem is that when the US government declares war on something the penalties grow to be grossly out of proportion with the actual harm caused.

  2. Re:And legality? by lynx_user_abroad · · Score: 1, Redundant
    declare war on it, that always works.

    Bush/Chainey in 04! Four More Wars! ;-)

    --

    The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.

  3. Let me get this straight... by Guppy06 · · Score: 1, Redundant
    IP rights are not natual rights but are, at least in the US, something explicitly granted to them by Congress on behalf of the American people (or so the line of reasoning goes). This isn't about any "rights" covered in the Declaration of Independence or in the Bill of Rights, just something covered by such a short blurb as:
    The Congress shall have Power To... promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
    And now, when it seems the people are in agreement that the current terms are noxious enough to justify circumventing Congress' definition of copyrights, government's solution isn't to listen to the will of the electorate but to decare war on them? Whatever happened to this "tyranny of the majority" I keep on hearing about?

    Creators or their publishers don't have a natural right to copyright, they are granted that right by the people, under terms agreed to by the people. Exactly what right do they have to claim "it's not enough?"
  4. Yay for being militant! by indros13 · · Score: 0, Redundant
    Anyone else notice that the US doesn't just try to solve problems, it declares war on them?
    • War on Poverty
    • War on Drugs
    • War on Terror
    • War on Nasty Tyrant with Dubious Connections to Actual Terrorists
    • War on Intellectual Poverty Theft

    No wonder the armed forces are stretched thin...

    --
    Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.