US Senate Passes PRO-IP Act

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Senate has passed the PRO-IP Act. While they stripped out the provision to have the DoJ act as copyright cops, it still contains increased penalties for infringement, civil forfeiture provisions, and creates an 'IP czar' to coordinate enforcement. Even though the civil forfeiture provisions are ostensibly intended for use against commercial piracy outfits, history indicates that they will probably get used against individuals at some point. Worse, because they left out the only part of the bill that Bush threatened to veto, it is expected to pass. It is going back to the House where they're expected to pass it on Saturday, after which the President will probably sign it. So, if you want to contact your representative, hurry." An anonymous reader notes that DefectiveByDesign.Org is mobilizing to fight this legislation. The Senate vote was unanimous. We've been following the progress of this bill for quite some time.

Comments

Good thing that they have their priorites right

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I mean, it's not like they have a financial crisis that they should be spending their time on.

Vote the Fuckers Out

[Greyfox]

Early on in this administration they changed the bankruptcy rules to make it harder to declare bankruptcy, stating that individual Americans need to be more responsible with their borrowing. At the same time they've driven this country into historic levels of debt and are now debating a bail out package for their friends on wall street with $700 billion of taxpayer dollars. Time and again they vote to support their friends in big business, but if you're an individual facing possible homelessness they'll treat you to some weasel words and turn their back on you.

This November we should all vote with one voice, Democrat and Republican, against the current corrupt congress. We should vote across the board, not Democrat or Republican but against anyone sitting in office. We should kick every single one of those bastards out, and we should keep kicking them out after just one term until they once more represent the people and not the businesses that contribute millions of dollars a year to their campaign funds. We should keep kicking them out until they spend more time doing the jobs we elected them to do instead of gallivanting around and campaigning for most of their terms. We should keep kicking them out until we find some people who actually take the responsibility to fix the major problems in thus country.

It is time to put aside our petty differences and root out this corruption that infects our very core, before it destroys this country.

China

[phorm]

Which is why - in many ways - China may actual progress while the US will continue to stagnate.

With the current patent and IP system in the US, it will reward those that may come up with an idea but not necessarily though that produce a product. Moreover, producing a product becomes dangerous as the chances of intersecting somebody else's IP goes up, and companies become unwilling to produce products due to the risk of being sued.

Meanwhile, Chinese and other non-IP-following shops will continue to ignore American IP, producing stuff (often "for cheap") which they happily sell to pretty much everyone.

I really can't see a future for an economy based no ideas/concepts/virtual-property VS one based on actually building something based on those ideas.