You see whenever a congressman or senator gets a bill tossed out or voted down they always try to find a way to push it through. Often times they take pieces of the legislation and tack it onto other bills to hide it. In other more extreme cases (nut cases?) they try to find a way to push it through without the need to be voted on or debated. This is what our old friend Lamar Smith is doing. You see he was upset that his offering to the content owners (Mostly the MPAA and RIAA) got shot down and is now looking for a way to make it stick. On his side are people like Chris Dodd a former Senator turned
Head Honcho at the MPAA. Back when SOPA was tossed out Dodd made the public statement that he would remember who helped him when the time came to write the check. We are pretty sure that Smith wants to get one of those checks so he is back at it (and this time Dodd will be able to directly help).
What Smith and Dodd have planned is to create a new agency that will exist only to push SOPA and ACTA like provisions with any and all trade agreements. This way they can get them embedded in foreign laws. Once SOPA is instituted (through economic pressure) then we can simply move up our laws to meet the norm.
The short title of this new bill is the “Intellectual Property Attaché Act” it has not received an HR number just yet as it is still in draft form. The introduction is something of a mockery to anyone that reads past it.
| “To promote a level playing field for American innovators abroad and American job creation by improving the intellectual property attache´ program, and coordinating and aligning intellectual property policy with compelling economic interests of the United States and freedom.” |
Wow way to try and drag patriotism into what is little more than an attempt to stifle innovation. I did not know that you could advance freedom by restricting rights... Also after reading this bill there is absolutely nothing about job creation other than the creation of the positions for these attachés. The bill much like SOPA is so broadly worded that we get the feeling that that it was intentional. If something like this is passed it would be very easy to “define“ the rest on the fly to make sure that Smith and Dodd got what they wanted. Of particular note is that under the Training and Oversight section there is nothing listed about actual oversight. It only notes who is responsible for training the new attachés.
| “The Director shall maintain authority over training, rating, setting objectives for, and coordinating the activities of, intellectual property attachés.” |
In the end we knew this would happen and even said we needed to look out for another attempt by Lamar Smith to push SOPA back through under a new name. Here we see the results of his new efforts. This time he will have help on “The Hill” as Chris Dodd will be able to directly interact with the members of the House and Senate. This was something he was not able to do when SOPA was in play due to ethics restrictions (we still think it is unethical for him to do it now). The fight to keep this from becoming law is going to be a rough one as now Dodd can threaten… um we mean talk to any congressmen that might oppose this.
Just like before it is the time to contact your representatives and tell them that you do not want any part of a bill like this. If this gets passed it will be very bad for consumers and we are likely to see jobs go away instead of being created, considering the fact that the global patent, copyright and trademark system is screwed up the last thing we need is a new law that not only enforces it in the US, but also tries to put it all over the globe.
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