Stop INDUCE NOW!
LawMeme has attorney Ernie Miller’s guide to the INDUCE Act and the impact it could have on society. Needless to say, it isn’t good. Not only would INDUCE overturn the “Betamax” decision that allowed for time-shifting of television programs, it would apply a new and incredibly subjective standard to a new class of crimes.
The purpose of the act is to criminalize the creation of tools that can be used to infringe on copyrights. This is analogous to (and passage will no doubt lead to) holding gun manufacturers responsible for deaths caused by criminals using their products. Although it wouldn’t make any devices illegal, it will have a chilling effect on innovation, and I expect a major price increase for the devices that remain on the market to cover losses that this act would cause.
Basically, any device that is capable of creating a copy of anything would be potentially infringing. That new camera-phone? You could take pictures of the pages of a magazine at the news stand and read them at home without paying for the magazine! That digital recorder? You might record a copyrighted lecture or a performance. Your TiVo? The fact that you aren’t watching the TV show when the network tells you to is evidence of your criminal nature.
But the argument that this law makes isn’t that someone should be prosecuted for illegal acts, but that anyone who makes a device that can be used illegally should be punished for daring to do such a thing. Sure, it starts as an RIAA and MPAA purchased piece of legislation from their favorite Senator (Hatch), but you and I both know that the mere existence of this law will be used to go after pretty much everything else. You want examples, you say? Click “more”…
OK, here ya go.
Combine INDUCE with Hate Crimes, and you get a law that says that manufacturing a device that makes it easier to disseminate “hate speech” is punishable.
Combine INDUCE with the Brady Center, and you get a law that says that the manufacturers of guns and bullets are liable for the end-user’s actions.
Combine INDUCE with Medicare, and you get a law that holds the companies that make the machines for pill-bottles liable for the misuse of pharmaceuticals.
So, not only is INDUCE staggeringly bad for free speech, etc. It is also a doorway for even worse violations of the free enterprise system, and the suppression of pretty much all civil liberties.
You must write to your Senators and Representatives and tell them that this bill must not become law. For good measure, you should write to the President too. He needs to know that if the Congress decides to impose the will of the RIAA upon us in this fashion that it is his duty to stop them in their tracks.