As readers of this blog likely know already, yesterday President Bush signed into law the PRO-IP Act of 2008. We were quick to praise the President and the White House, who joined with an overwhelmingly bipartisan coalition in Congress in support of this important legislation.

Early next year the new president should be appointing an IP coordinator — not a czar — who will ensure that all parts of the federal government are working in unison in a coordinated policy approach to intellectual property, particularly enforcing existing copyright laws regarding counterfeiting and piracy. (Note, the new law specifically indicates the coordinator will not be directing law enforcement investigations or prosecutions.)

In addition, we can look forward to increased resources for IP enforcement. And as I like to point out, my favorite provision is one that means a “harmless error” in registration at the US Copyright Office will not prevent, say, a photographer or songwriter from collecting statutory damages in an infringement suit. Funny how opponents of the bill never mention this provision.

We don’t yet know who will be the next President, but we do know the current Administration has taken an important step. After President Bush signed the bill, the White House released a fact sheet on the bill and the Administration’s focus on IP enforcement. Here’s an excerpt:

This legislation helps protect the rights of America’s consumers, workers, and entrepreneurs by strengthening both our civil and criminal laws against counterfeiting and piracy. Specifically, the Act increases statutory damage awards in civil counterfeiting cases, it strengthens remedies available in the prosecution of criminal cases involving counterfeiting and piracy, it enhances resources (personnel, training, and equipment) for Department of Justice programs that combat IP theft, and makes permanent the Administration’s Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP!) Initiative and its inter-agency IP coordination efforts. The PRO-IP Act protects the work of American innovators, strengthens the rule of law, and will help keep American families safe.

All of those are positives, including making permanent the fairly successful STOP initiative (being a creation of the Administration and not Congress, it would have expired on January 20th unless the next President continued it). And it shouldn’t be lost on readers that the White House began with the benefits to consumers — we all are rewarded by this important legislation becoming law.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 at 1:26 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under capitol hill, copyright law, counterfeit, piracy, property rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.