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Microsoft Promotes New Trade Secrets Bill (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A Microsoft lawyer has put forward the company's conviction that the Defend Trade Secrets Act 2015, currently being debated at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, is necessary to protect digital businesses which are now hamstrung by having to pursue trade secret infractions — a federal crime — within state law. Though the bill, revised from its failed 2014 submission, contains necessary updates for the inevitable shortcomings of existing 1979/1985 legislation regarding trade secrets, its opponents are more interested in the way it would extend ex parte seizure law to federalize private information and data in corporate plaintiffs' lawsuits and extend the possibility for closed hearings and media injunctions.
The best part is that Microsoft is whining about their privacy and intellectual property immediately after they released an operating system that is designed to spy on users and steal their intellectual property.
It's another example of legislation framed in Australia and then exported to America. After editing the proposed act for compatibility with the American constitution it then becomes a Bill proposed to congress.
Don't let it pass. It has some really nasty provisions against using encryption by classing it as a 'controlled munition'. If it follows the Australian model then you will find that it has some pretty unpleasant provisions that grants the government the capacity to appropriate any software you may have written and then make you criminally liable for using the software you created. I tried, but not enough people here care or understand.
Whilst it is an unpopular to talk about IT unions here, this is one of the things they are tasked to be on the look out for. Frankly, I'd prefer to pay mandatory fees and have someone else do this so I could get on with the things I do best. I can't stand reading these legislations to see what the next thing is that government is going to use to fuck over IT professionals and the amount of time I spend writing letters to politicians, when they propose these bills, has become really intense over the last 18 months. Excluding the TPP, which is double the size I estimated (6000 pages), this is the 5th Act passed that affects Information Technology.
This has nothing to do with left or right politics. It has everything to do with a functioning democracy. It is naive to think that raw talent and intelligence is enough to succeed in this industry anymore, the game is much bigger. If you don't like the idea of an I.T union then start picking up legislation and using your big brain to analyze the effect it is going to have on you and your peers and start writing letters to politicians because the bottom line here is no one has got our back and these laws will continue to be framed to control what you think you can do by criminalizing your behavior when appropriate.
It's not a slippery slope any more, it's a full on uncontrolled slide.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
This seems like uSoft trying to have their cake and eat it to.
THIS.
Trade secrets, once disclosed, are no longer secret. If your idea does not merit patent protection, then use a trade secret as long as it holds -- but no longer. If your idea merits patent protection patent it -- *and disclose it*, in exchange for federal protection *for a limited time*.
Do *NOT* under any circumstances, make legal changes to allow trade secrets to become the moral equivalent of a patent in perpetuity.