Not content to advocate the torture of enemy combatants, the wiretapping of American citizens, and the firing of US attorneys for political reasons, 13-year Bush lapdog Alberto Gonzalez has a new cause: jailing citizens who attempt to infringe copyright and seizing their property.
To accomplish this, he recently introduced the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007, which is similar to earlier proposed legislation, except it asks for longer jail terms. According to Corynne McSherry, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, "It's not totally clear what would count as attempting copyright infringement," so everything from searching for music on peer-to-peer networks to posting music on an MP3 blog could be targeted.
Mathew Honan does a fine job of explaining the situation in an article posted today, pointing out that the overall effect of the Act would be to make copyright law more like drug law. Like that's such a roaring success...
Only 614 days to go.
