Obama Tries to Prove Rush Limbaugh Right

Unfortunately, no one notices.

The Obama administration is looking to implement draconian new IP laws that will literally criminalize certain types of thought:

While they may never be able to truly defeat piracy and drive it from the lurking depths of the internet, copyright protection attack-dog organizations like the RIAA and MPAA have long dreamed of the day when they would no longer have to pay for their own copyright enforcement. Now that dream is on the verge of coming true, thanks to the Obama administration.

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The White House's vision is perhaps a prelude to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which will go before Congress later this year. The bill would make P2P or BitTorrent client development a criminal offense if the distributed software was used for infringement. It also implements an interesting provision called "imminent infringement", which allows the government to charge people who they think might be about to infringe with a civil offense (for example if you searched "torrent daft punk"). This is among the first official "thought crime" provisions to be proposed by the U.S. government. The bill also makes it a criminal offense to bypass DRM.

As I have said before, IP law is, at its core, public interest law, as is clearly stated in the Constitution, and this stuff is just nuts.

It does not serve anyone to spend taxpayer money to enforce private licenses, particularly not when doing so implies a regime that would have Eric Arthur Blair^* spinning in his grave.

^*Better known by his nom de plume, George Orwell.