Copyright Czar

Ok, so regardless of how we all feel about the $700 Billion bailout plan, we can probably agree that it's something that Congress should be spending their time on right now, deciding what to do with it. But, no, instead we spend our time on things like this:

The Senate has just passed a bill creating a new cabinet-level position for "Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator".

Yes, we now have a cabinet-level position in the government to monitor copyright infringement and patent violations. How ridiculous. We are tightening the screws on innovation in this country. I've been pushing the idea for a while now, and each week it seems to be even more obvious. The more Draconian we are about enforcing copyright and patent laws the harder it will be for people to invent and release interesting stuff.

It's becoming nigh unto impossible for small time individuals or companies to release new products or ideas for fear of being sued into the stone age. The only reason we still have most of our innovative new products being released is because they are being produced by gigantic corporations like Google who have the ability to guarantee Mutually Assured Destruction to anyone stupid enough to try to sue them. This is the same policy that IBM has employed for years as well, especially during their heyday. For the most part this companies will leave others alone, but if you try to sue them once about anything you'll be buried in so many counter-suits that it takes years to sort it all out (See SCO vs. IBM).

It is my opinion that if we keep up this insanity that the United States will be technologically irrelevant within 20 or 30 years. The rest of the world will continue on without us because they don't care about our stupid IP and Copyright laws, particularly China and India.

The purpose of copyright and patent laws is to promote creativity and innovation by rewarding people with monopolies over their work for short periods of time. Instead they are being used to allow people to create one piece of work and then sit on their butts for the rest of their lives collection checks.

Now, I'm ranting, but there was one, unexpectedly good thing that happened to this bill. The fact that the Senate did remove the clause that would force the DOJ to sue people on behalf of copyright holders, which was truly insane.