[GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created content providers, beware!

[Jon W. <hp...@mi...>]

The "Pro-IP" bill passed the US House of Representatives earlier this month.

The bill is backed by the likes of the RIAA and the MPAA. It, 
ostensibly, is there to make fighting illegal file sharing easier.
However, it has potentially much more severe repercussions, because it 
doesn't limit itself to file sharing, but just talks about IP protection 
in general (especially copyright).

One provision of the bill lets law enforcement seize equipment that is 
needed for an investigation into a copyright infringement claim. Note 
that no crime needs to be proven. Clearly, anyone running a large system 
where user-created content is allowed would go down the tubes pretty 
quickly if their servers were all carted off to a warehouse somewhere. 
The offensive opportunities for an unscrupulous competitor are 
staggering! (And you thought nuisance suits under the DMCA were bad?)

So, for those of you who are currently allowing user-created content, or 
who are considering allowing user-created content in your games and 
virtual worlds, I urge you to take action and let the senate know about 
these problems before it is too late! If you're just a lowly coder or 
artist, then you owe it to yourself and your company to let the business 
persons in your company know how bad this can be for online gaming 
providers, because the law would allow any copyright infringement 
allegation to shut you down (by carting off your hardware), regardless 
of merit, depending on the claim and relation of the entity making the 
allegations.

Sincerely,

jw

-- 

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