The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act of 2008
ESPER: U.S. auto industry is innovator in many areas
05 Feb, 2009: The Washington Times, Washington, D.C., USAThe administration and Congress can protect automotive jobs and consumer safety against criminal counterfeiting by fully funding and implementing the PRO-IP Act, improving border enforcement, ensuring our trading partners live up to their international obligations, and continuing negotiations for a strong international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. ...
New Clashes Await Over Digital Copyright
15 Jan, 2009: InternetNews.com, USAWASHINGTON -- Of the many tech issues the new Congress is expected to consider, few are more controversial than reform to the digital copyright system. ...
INTA Hoping To Work With The Obama Administration
12 Jan, 2009: UC Daily News, TN, USAThe International Trademark Association (INTA) today releases its letter to the Obama Presidential Transition Team, which highlights the critically important issues that brand owners and consumers will face in 2009 and beyond. ...
Business workshop: Protect intellectual property
18 Nov, 2008: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PA, USAA new federal law allows the government to prosecute companies and individuals suspected of stealing intellectual property rights. The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008 significantly beefs up enforcement of U.S. copyrights and trademark laws. ...
Public Knowledge Statement on Senate Passage of Intellectual Property Legislation
26 Sep, 2008: Public Knowledge, Washington, DC, USAIt is unfortunate that the Senate felt it necessary to pass this legislation. The bill only adds more imbalance to a copyright law that favors large media companies. At a time when the entire digital world is going to less restrictive distribution models, and when the courts are aghast at the outlandish damages being inflicted on consumers in copyright cases, this bill goes entirely in the wrong direction. ...
IP bill passes Senate, no civil enforcement power for DoJ
26 Sep, 2008: ars technica, Malden, MA, USAUntil recently dubbed the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act, S.3325 was rebranded as the "Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act," or PRO-IP, to match its sibling in the House of Representatives. ...
The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act of 2008 (formerly Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008)
26 Sep, 2008: United States SenateTo enhance remedies for violations of intellectual property laws, and for other purposes. ...
RIAA, MPAA resume lobbying push to expand copyright law
11 Sep, 2008: CNET News, USAIt only took a few days after politicians returned from their summer holidays for Hollywood and the major record labels to resume their legislative push to rewrite and expand digital copyright law... On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the so-called Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act, a 46-page bill that was introduced in July by Vermont's Patrick Leahy and Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, the committee's top Democrat and Republican. ...
Concerns Regarding S. 3325, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008
10 Sep, 2008: American Association of Law Libraries, American Library Association, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Digital Future Coalition, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Essential Action, IP Justice, Knowledge Ecology International, Medical Library Association, Public Knowledge, Special Libraries AssociationWhile enforcing IP rights is necessary to ensuring the progress of science and the useful arts, an unbalanced approach to enforcement would lead to unintended harms and impede that progress. Several of the provisions contained within S. 3325 threaten such an imbalance. ...
Senators Announce New Intellectual Property Enforcement Bill
29 Jul, 2008: Electronic Frontier Foundation, San Francisco, CA, USALast week, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee introduced S. 3325, the "Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008," a bill that proposes a number of alarming changes to copyright law. The bill is the Senate's gift to big content owners, creating new and powerful tools -- many of which will be paid for by your tax dollars -- for the entertainment industry to go after infringers. ...
PRO-IP and PIRATE Acts Fused Into New Bill
26 Jul, 2008: Slashdot, USASenators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) have just sponsored a new bill, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, which would combine the worst parts of the PRO-IP Act and the PIRATE Act. The basic idea is pretty simple: expand the Federal government to create something like the Department of Homeland Security for IP. ...
Senate Introduces IP Reform Bill Bolstering Enforcement
24 Jul, 2008: Wired News, San Francisco, CA, USAThe U.S. senators floated a bill Thursday boosting copyright and trademark protection, legislation that would allow the attorney general to prosecute civil cases of infringement and one that allows for the forfeiture of hardware used to infringe. ...
Leahy, Specter, Bayh, Voinovich Introduce Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Legislation
24 Jul, 2008: Office of Senator Leahy, Washington, DC, USAThe Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008 will be introduced in the Senate by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Ranking Member Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), and is co-sponsored by Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), George Voinovich (R-Ohio). Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) are also cosponsors of the bill. ...
Senator fuses controversial IP bills into big, bad package
25 Jul, 2008: ars technica, Malden, MA, USAIntellectual property legislation introduced in the Senate on Thursday would combine elements of two controversial IP enforcement bills: The PRO-IP Act, which passed the House by a wide margin in May, and the PIRATE Act, which has won Senate approval several times since its first introduction in 2004... Some of the strongest criticism of PRO-IP has been directed at a provision, replicated here, that would allow for the seizure of "property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate" a copyright or trademark infringement. While this language is presumably meant to target the equipment used by commercial bootlegging operations, it would also appear to cover, for example, the computer used to BitTorrent a movie or album. ...
House Passes Controversial PRO IP Act
08 May, 2008: Electronic Frontier Foundation, San Francisco, CA, USAThe most outrageous provisions would create new and unnecessary federal bureaucracies devoted to intellectual property enforcement. None seems more ridiculous than language creating a Cabinet-level "IP enforcement czar" that would report to the President and coordinate enforcement efforts across government, a proposal that has been loudly opposed by the Department of Justice. Why is Congress spending our tax dollars on a new layer of officialdom that the cops themselves don't want or need? ...
House overwhelmingly passes controversial PRO-IP Act
08 May, 2008: ars technica, Malden, MA, USAThe House of Representatives has approved the Pro-IP Act, a controversial legislative proposal that aims to impose stricter penalties for copyright infringement. The bill, which has strong support from the content industry, passed by a vote of 410 to 10. ...
House Bill To Create Anti-Piracy Czar Advances
01 May, 2008: Washington Post, DC, USAA House committee passed an anti-piracy bill yesterday that would stiffen penalties for illegally copying and distributing music and movies and would create an "intellectual property czar" at the White House level -- a job that the Justice Department warned would "undermine" its independence. ...
Rep. Berman pulls controversial "compilations" rule from PRO-IP Act
06 Mar, 2008: ars technica, Malden, MA, USAThe PRO-IP Act was designed to "strengthen" US intellectual property protections, but opponents of the bill have referred to it as "gluttonous" and overreaching. One of the most controversial bits of the bill was a provision to stop treating compilations of copyrighted works as a single work. This change would mean, for instance, that a music label could seek 10 or 12 times the allowed statutory damages when it prosecutes someone who sells a single copy of an album. ...
The Threat Posed By Inflated Statutory Damages ("White Paper")
05 Feb, 2008: Public Knowledge et al, Washington, DC, USAThe PRO IP Act (H.R. 4279) proposes to weaken the long-established “one work” rule, which today imposes a measure of certainty on how copyright statutory damages are calculated. Under current law, a copyright plaintiff may seek up to $150,000 per work infringed. ...
PRO-IP Act is dangerous and unnecessary, say industry groups
05 Feb, 2008: ars technica, Malden, MA, USALast month, the Copyright Office held a closed-door session on the issue of statutory damages. A small affair, the roundtable was a response to the PRO-IP Act introduced in Congress late last year. In the wake of the meeting, eight public interest and industry groups have published a white paper (PDF) arguing against any changes to the "one work" rule and the increases in statutory damages that would result from such changes. ...
Copy a CD, owe $1.5 million under "gluttonous" PRO-IP Act
29 Jan, 2008: ars technica, Malden, MA, USANot content with the current (and already massive) statutory damages allowed under copyright law, the RIAA is pushing to expand the provision. The issue is compilations, which now are treated as a single work. In the RIAA's perfect world, each copied track would count as a separate act of infringement, meaning that a copying a ten-song CD even one time could end up costing a defendant $1.5 million if done willfully. Sound fair? Proportional? Necessary? Not really, but that doesn't mean it won't become law. ...
House committee hears the cons of the PRO-IP Act
13 Dec, 2007: ars technica, Malden, MA, USAThe House today held a hearing on the new PRO-IP Act that beefs up intellectual property enforcement. Rick Cotton, a top NBC lawyer and representative for the Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy (CACP), called counterfeiting and piracy "a global pandemic" and "a dagger into the heart of America's future economic security." What the US needs, he said, is a "declaration of war." But not even the Department of Justice is convinced that PRO-IP, in its current form, is that sort of declaration. ...
"PRO IP Act" Aims to Increase Infringement Penalties and Expand Government Enforcement
07 Dec, 2007: Electronic Frontier Foundation, San Francisco, CA, USAThis week, members of the House Judiciary Committee introduced the "Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP) Act of 2007," a bill that ratchets up the federal government's role in dealing with intellectual property infringement. While portions of the bill seem legitimately targeted at combating mass, commercial counterfeiting operations, other parts are devoted to little more than protecting the entertainment industry's obsolete business models. ...
Congress' copyright reform: seize computers, boost penalties, spend money
06 Dec, 2007: ars technica, Malden, MA, USAA bipartisan group of Congressmen (and one woman) yesterday introduced a major bill aimed at boosting US intellectual property laws and the penalties that go along with them. While much of the legislation targets industrial counterfeiting and knockoff drugs, it also allows the government to seize people's computers. ...
Copyright bill boosts penalties, creates new agency
05 Dec, 2007: CNET News, USAIn the aftermath of the $222,000 jury verdict that the Recording Industry Association of America recently won against a Minnesota woman who shared 24 songs on Kazaa, the U.S. Congress is preparing to amend copyright law. Politicians want to increase penalties for copyright infringement. ...
Public Knowledge Comment On Copyright Enforcement Bill
05 Dec, 2007: Public Knowledge, Washington, DC, USAThis bill takes already extraordinary copyright damages and increases them, expanding the threat of litigation intended to stifle competition and innovation... Instead of following the course of this bill, the Committee should look to the future, to a more realistic and rational copyright regime that can adapt pre-VCR copyright laws to a post YouTube world...
PRO-IP Act of 2007 (H.R. 4279)
05 Dec, 2007: United States CongressA BILL To enhance remedies for violations of intellectual property laws, and for other purposes.. ...
"Attempted infringement" appears in new House intellectual property bill
30 Jul, 2007: ars technica, Malden, MA, USAOne of the bill's controversial features is the fact that people can be charged with criminal copyright infringement even if such infringement has not actually taken place. "Any person who attempts to commit an offense under paragraph (1) shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the attempt," says the bill. ...
Intellectual Property Protection Act to make attemped infringement illegal
15 May, 2007: ars technica, Malden, MA, USAThe IPPA would come down harder on those found to have violated the DMCA, subjecting them to new forfeiture and restitution provisions. "Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part, to commit or facilitate the commission of the offense" of violating the DMCA could be confiscated, according to the text of the legislation. ...
Pirate Act wants US taxpayers to pay for prosecution of civil suits to protect business
26 May, 2004: ars technica, Malden, MA, USAWhy pursue costly civil litigation when you can have the government do it for you? That's the gist of part of the so-called Pirate Act, a new set of legislation aimed at criminalizing various online acts of piracy. While common parlance often talks of file sharing as "theft" or "stealing," in the overwhelming majority of instances, copyright infringement is a civil matter, not a criminal one. The bill hopes to see such acts criminalized, allowing the government to step in and do the grunt work with the added benefit of increased fines and jail times that such criminalization would entail. ...
PIRATE ACT of 2004 (S. 2237)
25 Mar, 2004: United States CongressA Bill to amend chapter 5 of title 17, United States Code, to authorize civil copyright enforcement by the Attorney General, and for other purposes. ...