Congress, The New Copyright Bully

from the law-professors-speak-up dept

Following yesterday's story about a law professor saying that the RIAA should be putting it's customers in jail, another law professor has written up an opinion piece attacking Congress for their views on copyright protection. This piece also takes the view that the RIAA should be suing its own customers, but points out that it is a business decision for them to make (which I agree with). His harsh words, however, are focused on Congress, which he feels has been completely brainwashed by the music industry into believing that copyright infringement is destroying our society. As he points out, "just about everyone outside the Beltway knows that criminal copyright law has already gone too far. We necessarily commit copyright infringement as an unavoidable consequence of living in a digital society." He thinks Congress needs to develop an integrated proposal around copyright that doesn't make most American into felons overnight. He also suggests that if the current laws aren't doing the trick, perhaps that's because they were bad policy, and just making that policy stricter only makes the problem worse. For the most part, I agree. I think Congress, for the most part, doesn't really understand the issues, and I do believe that the RIAA has the right to sue its customers - I just think that they should realize that the costs of doing so are much worse than not doing so. Apparently, their cost-benefit equation works out differently than mine.