The House passed H.R. 4279 (PRO-IP Act) yesterday, which, among other things, would create the “Office of the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative” under the Executive Office of the President.  It also increases the amount of resources and personnel related to CHIP (Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property) enforcement.

Read a summary here

See the full text here (PDF)

The EFF has this to say about the legislation (House Passes Controversial PRO IP Act):

“The 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.”

In a time when many public University systems are facing huge budget deficits (for example, the University of California faces a $400 million deficit), is creating a new layer of federal IP enforcement a useful allocation of funds?  Especially when the proposed legislation has been criticized by the very people it directs.  Rather than using funds to relieve financial stress in education, or any other strained public service, the 110th Congress has chosen to help organizations like the RIAA and MPAA fortify their own warped IP ideologies.

Stay tuned for more updates and analyses.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Commentary, Copyright, Trademarks, U.S.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.