Lame Duck Congress

[SteveI]

Now that the election is over, it looks like the lame duck congress will be getting together for one last hurrah... They have to sign some spending bills by saturday, or else the federal gov't will default on loans and have some 'splain'in to do:

http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/15/news...ress/index.htm

Even if you are not into govt, you may care about one bill that has already passed the house and may make it to the senate floor before saturday. To quote the link:

" * The Intellectual Property Protection Act: Eight separate bills were rolled into one giant proposal that was passed in the House.

The omnibus bill would authorize federal prosecutors to pursue civil -- not just criminal -- penalties against copyright violators. It would also lower the standard of proof for showing a copyright violation, among other changes. "

This could have serious ramifications on the internet & file sharing. The most obvious intellectual property for the net savvy is music and software. It would give the RIAA the teeth it needs to turn filesharing on it's ear. "Civil" is huge since individuals and groups could be sued in civil court for damages.

[GrahamGarside]

and so the filesharing world like the hydra it is will comeback with encrypted and probabally proxy connections so they won't have a clue whats being downloaded or by who
they should just give up fighting piracy it's a lost war when one side has no rules to follow, the majority of people do actually purchase their software so rather than adding all these costs in fighting piracy to their bill why not just accept it's always gonna be around and maybe working on making buying legitimate copys a more attractive proposition to the none legit users