SAN JOSE, CA:  I've been so busy traveling, I haven't had time to
comment on the House's overwhelming passage last week of the PRO-IP Act by House
Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers, beyond our statement.
Any time you win by a spread of about 400 votes, that's pretty impressive. Kudos
to all those who voted for the legislation, and may the Senate move swiftly
either on this bill or existing legislation that could quickly be paired to
it.

PRO-IP was raised by Media Access Project's Andrew Schwartzman here on the
Innovation '08 panel I was on. (More on the conference here
and here.)
I pointed out many of the benefits of the bill, such as attaches abroad to help
countries enforce their own IP laws, increased statutory damages and other tools
to crack down on piracy and counterfeiting, and fixes to loopholes that keep
some Copyright Office registrants from properly enforcing their rights.

Prompted by Schwartzman, I pointed out that at subcommittee a controversial
provision on statutory damages had been removed, and at full committee level
controversial language on forfeiture had been modified. I also noted that in the
current legislation, this so-called copyright "czar" housed in the Executive
Office of the President was no czar at all, but in fact just a coordinator of
the various officials across government involved in copyright; no existing
position, such as US Trade Representative, would see its power diminished.

Microsoft's Jule Sigall had said that most copyright legislation that became
law resulted from consensus. I said that was the process occurring here. The
overwhelming vote was not the result of ignorance upon House members, or the
victory of some narrow interest; after all, the bill has the support not just of
the corporate copyright community, but also the Consumer Electronics Association
and unions. This elite audience included a lot of people whose companies could
be harmed by counterfeiting, such as those working for Cisco or other network
hardware manufacturers.

I've been monitoring the legislative battles on copyright for more than a
decade now. Sigall is right; I've watched a lot of legislation fade away because
there was not sufficient consensus. But when modified to accommodate others'
interests the fortunes can change. (In the speaker's room before the conference,
I noted that Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge demonstrated how influential the
leader of an advocacy group could be, as I gather she was very involved in the
removal of some of the more contentious pieces of the bill.)

It's easy for those suspicious of copyright to look at PRO-IP, read some
less-than-informed blogs or news accounts of its "czar" provisions, and suspect
this is some sort of corporate consipiracy. But its large number of backers and
smooth passage in the House speaks to its ability to embrace multiple interests,
and that's all to the good.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 6:01 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under capitol hill, piracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.