Peer to Peer Piracy Bill—A License to Ransack?

There’s an important post about Coble’s role in the Peer to Peer Piracy bill at Ed Cone’s blog. He quotes an email from Fred von Lohmann, Senior Intellectual Property Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Under the bill, “…a copyright owner *can* invade your computer if it has your “authorization.” When would you ever authorize such a thing? When it’s hidden in a “clickwrap” license agreement! If the bill passed, there’s nothing to stop PressPlay, Microsoft, or any other copyright owners, from putting a “pre-authorization” into their service agreements.

The worst thing about the bill is that it entitles copyright owners to ignore *any law*, so long as they stay within the (murky) bounds of the statute…Copyright owners are saying that, unlike the rest of us, they should be above the law. This is a power that we as a society don’t give to anyone, even to the FBI.”

This is why all of us need to contact everyone we can think of and let them know that passing the “Peer to Peer Piracy” bill is a seriously bad idea. You might also suggest that they read Ed Cone’s column at the News – Record, and this editorial as well.