Guns and file sharing
Rick Nelson, Executive Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 9/1/2004
A bill pending in the US Congress has the potential to turn your computer into the legal equivalent of a loaded gun. But wait, that's not correct. Guns, and their manufacturers, have many legal rights.
Lacking explicit protection in the Constitution, computers and their makers won't fare so well if the "Induce" bill becomes law. It would make illegal any innovation that could encourage copyright violations. That definition could encompass the entire Internet and every appliance that connects to it. After all, the purpose of the Internet is to move files, many of which are copyrighted, from place to place.
The bill targets the file-sharing services that arguably exist only to facilitate piracy, despite some innocuous uses that defenders might postulate. A legislative solution that thwarts piracy would be more than welcome, but the Induce bill suffers from two glaring problems.
First, it won't limit copyright piracy. The peer-to-peer networking that enables file swapping will become more and more diffused, denying law enforcement a central actor against which to file charges.
Second and more important, the bill would have a chilling effect on legitimate innovation. Les Vadasz, an Intel executive during the invention of the first microprocessor, writes in the Wall Street Journal that should the bill become law, startups would be unwilling to risk development projects that might saddle them with ruinous litigation, even though they might ultimately prevail. Passage of the Induce bill, he warns, will accelerate the off-shore migration of innovation.
Unfortunately, the bill has strong bipartisan support. Its Republican co-sponsor, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, suggests to the Washington Post that he's open to compromise but that he'll pass some version—good or bad.
As I write this, the Boston Globe reports that an 11-year-old child trying out for a football team was shot in the chest. If Hatch and co-sponsor Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) need something to do, perhaps they could put their minds to crafting legislation that would do for gun violence what they hope to do for music piracy. Surely, it shouldn't be hard for them to set priorities.
US legislators have a sorry record dealing with technology—from the ubiquitous though ignored V-chip to the constitutionally suspect Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Often, their knowledge seems limited to what high-priced entertainment-industry lobbyists tell them.
Meanwhile, the entertainment industry seems to be doing just fine hunting down and suing 12-year-old file-sharing miscreants. Legislators should keep in mind that technology doesn't infringe on copyrights; people infringe on copyrights.
Contact Rick Nelson at rnelson@tmworld.com.
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