RIAA Defends INDUCE Act; Explains Why It's No Betamax

from the here-comes-the-other-side dept

It's not surprising that the RIAA would come out in defense of the INDUCE Act from Senator Hatch. They practically wrote the bill themselves. They had hoped to sneak it through without any debate, but a bunch of tech companies have stood up and pointed out how ridiculous this is. Meanwhile, plenty of others are showing what kinds of technology would be banned by the law. Realizing this might not sail through Congress as smoothly as they had hoped, the RIAA has now gone on the offensive. RIAA head Mitch Bainwol has sent a letter to all 100 Senators defending the bill, and saying that, contrary to the claims of others, it wouldn't overturn the famous Betamax decision (which allowed technologies that could be used for infringement, if they had substantial non-infringing purposes as well). Bainwol claims that "intentional inducement" is a much higher standard than was used in the Betamax ruling. However, as Ernest Miller points out in his INDUCE Act rebuttal, the only reason that's a higher standard is because there was no law against "inducing infringement" when the Betamax decision went to court.