PROTECT IP Renamed To the E-PARASITE Act

bs0d3 writes "The U.S. House has drafted their version of Protect IP today. They have renamed the bill to 'the Enforcing and Protecting American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation Act' or the E-PARASITE Act. The new house version of Protect IP is far worse than the Senate bill s.968 and it massively expands the sites that will be covered by the law. While the Senate bill limited its focus to sites that were 'dedicated to infringing activities,' the house bill targets 'foreign infringing sites' and 'has only limited purpose or use other than infringement.' They're also including an 'inducement' claim, any foreign site declared by the Attorney General to be 'inducing' infringement, can now be censored by the US. With no adversarial hearing. The bill can be read here."

Comments

American rights?

[Bucky24]

I guess they're really going all the way with "Corporations are people".

Re:American rights?

[moj0joj0]

Please allow me to expand upon this a little bit:

As early as the mid-1800's the trusts and tycoons had been trying, without success, for decades to have the SCOTUS declare corporations people. In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886), the Supreme Court recognized corporations as persons for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In 2003, the SCOTUS declared corporate funding cannot be limited under the First Amendment, in 2010 SCOTUS declared money to be speech and removed all limits to corporate spending on lobbying.

The corporate person-hood aspect of the campaign finance debate turns on Buckley v. Valeo (1976) and Citizens United (2010): Buckley ruled that political spending is protected by the First Amendment right to free speech, while Citizens United ruled that corporate political spending is protected, holding that corporations have a First Amendment right to free speech.

Result: corporations, government licensed creatures, now have become the government, by using their wealth to "unfairly influence elections." This lead to the first stirrings of unrest in the civil populous, most notably the 'Occupy Wall Street' demonstrations, citing no faith in their elected officials because of the undue power wielded by corporations and special interest groups to influence law makers.

Now, protected by the very institutions that had been in place to protect people, citizens of the United States are denied at least two of the traditional corner stones of a democracy. Those foundations stones being the Ballot and Jury box.

Timeline: -Tillman Act of 1907, banned corporate political contributions to national campaigns. -Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, landmark campaign financing legislation. -Buckley v. Valeo (1976) upheld limits on campaign contributions, but held that spending money to influence elections is protected speech as in the first amendment. -First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) upheld the rights of corporations to spend money in non-candidate elections (i.e. ballot initiatives and referendums). -Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) upheld the right of the state of Michigan to prohibit corporations from using money from their corporate treasuries to support or oppose candidates in elections, noting that "[c]orporate wealth can unfairly influence elections." -Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain–Feingold), banned corporate funding of issue advocacy ads that mentioned candidates close to an election. -McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003), substantially upheld McCain–Feingold. -Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2007) weakened McCain–Feingold, but upheld core of McConnell. -Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) the Supreme Court of the United States held that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited under the First Amendment, overruling Austin (1990) and partly overruling McConnell (2003).

Re:China copies U.S. Intellectual Property...

[jd]

Indeed. Didn't the US do this for a longish while, signing up to the International treaties after they'd got the good stuff?

I'm not saying that China is "faultless" or the US is "all bad", but let's face facts - America would not have made the progress it has if it had respected European patent laws and European property rights. If it wants to claim China is in the wrong, then I have nothing against that provided it is NOT for the purpose of maintaining a hegemony obtained solely through the same practices. If China is guilty, then American corporations and the American government owe Europe a percentage of the profits secured through IP theft.

Sure, that might push the US into recession. Isolating China and closing down all counterfeit goods plus genuine goods based on stolen IP would not merely put China into recession, it would bankrupt it. If you're willing to do the latter, you should be man enough to accept the former.

The good news is that 100+ years of compound interest for some of the products and 60+ years of accumulated value in the case of property illegally confiscated from British and other Allied nations during WW2 should cover the combined debts of Italy, Greece, Spain and Ireland, and leave enough left over for the heads of State to put in advance orders for GTA 5.