[x-pubpol] The Intellectual Property Attache Act

[Joly MacFie]

Both Cory Doctorow <
http://boingboing.net/2012/07/10/sopa-is-back-lamar-smith-tryi.html>
and Mike Masnick <
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120709/12574819634/lamar-smith-looking-to-sneak-through-sopa-bits-pieces-starting-with-expanding-hollywoods-global-police-force.shtml>
note
that leading SOPA proponent Lamar Smith has come up with a new cracker, the
Intellectual Property Attache Act
(pdf<http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/Markups%202012/PDF/Mark%2007102012/SMITTX_084_xml.pdf>),
which was said to undergo markup on Jul 10.


Masnick:

The specifics of the bill appear to go further than the version in SOPA. It
is clear that the bill itself is framed from the maximalist perspective.
There is nothing about the rights of the public, or of other countries to
design their own IP regimes. It notes that the role of the attaches is:

*to advance the intellectual property rights of United States persons and
their licensees;*

The bill also "elevates" the IP attaches out of the US Patent and Trademark
Office, and sets them up as their own agency, including a new role: the
Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property. Yes, we'll get
another IP Czar, this time focused in the Commerce Department.

When even the USTR is recognizing the
importance<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120703/12112119569/ustrs-surprise-turnaround-now-advocating-limitations-exceptions-to-copyright.shtml>
of
limitations and exceptions to copyright, to have Congress push a bill that
basically ignores limitations and exceptions and only looks to expand
Hollywood's special thugs within the diplomatic corp. seems like a huge
problem.




Techcrunch  <
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/10/sopa-intellectual-property-attache-act/>
referring to it as "zombie SOPA" has a statement from Darrell Issa, an
initial SOPA opponent, supporting the bill, given Fair Use provisions:

*“Rep. Issa is set to support the legislation, with small modifications.
The Intellectual Property Attaché Act is written to help American
individuals and companies that are experiencing intellectual property
infringement in certain foreign countries. The legislation will place USPTO
trained IP attaches in countries around the world, focusing on areas where
American job creators and innovators are experiencing especially high
levels of IP-theft. These attaches will work with the foreign governments
to help eliminate in-country IP theft that is occurring. This is a net
benefit to all Americans both IP holders and consumers. Also, the training
and other programs that the attaches may provide can also help local law
enforcement to deal with IP-infringement that is occurring. The cost for
these attaches will come from collected PTO fees, meaning that the bill is
revenue neutral. Additionally, we expect that an amendment will be made to
the legislation before it is marked up that will instruct the attaches to
promote clear IP exceptions ­ like fair use – already codified in U.S. Law.”
*
*
*

One wonders if Lamar is aware that any acronym of the form **AA is already
an anathema..
*
*
*j
*
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------
Joly MacFie  218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast
WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com
 http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com
 VP (Admin) - ISOC-NY - http://isoc-ny.org
--------------------------------------------------------------
-
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.isoc-ny.org/pipermail/x-pubpol-isoc-ny.org/attachments/20120711/3f905970/attachment-0001.htm>