Ernie Miller wears many blogging hats. Over at The Importance Of, he's been blogging up an incredible storm about S. 2560, the Act Formerly Known as the INDUCE Act, now called the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act. ("Infringement" is singular, but "Copyrights" is plural. Go figure.)
His coverage matters to lawyers, techies, copyfighters, and consumers. That is, everyone. Ignore it at your peril. The IICA is one of the most dangerously misguided and malicious pieces of technology legislation to rear its ugly head in the last decade. Ernie's obsessively detailed articles are a powerful indictment of a bad idea. I have only one thing to add to what Ernie is saying: an index.
Look inside for the LawMeme Reader's Guide to Ernie Miller's Guide to the INDUCE Act.
First, there are Ernie's annotations of key pro-INDUCE texts:
Second, there are are his analyses of the (often frightening) interactions of INDUCE with other provisions of copyright law:
Third, there's Hatch's Hit List (modelled on Ed Felten's Fritz's Hit List), a collection of useful technologies that INDUCE would outlaw. (There would be plenty more that the bill's text would ban, if they weren't so entrenched in our society that we no longer see the infringement, only the usefulness.)
- WiFi Car Stereos
- 3D Printers
- AM/FM Transmitters
- Arcade Emulators
- Automatic Online Translators
- Legos
- VOIP
- Worth1000 Photoshop Contests
- Darknets
- 3D Scanners
- Virtual Jigsaw Puzzles
- FreeCache
- Disaster Relief Communication Systems
- Deepnet Explorer
- Ringtone Remixers
- The New York Times
- Cellphones with Hard Drives
- Universal Turing Machine
- Battle Torrent
- P2P Congress
- TiVo to Go
Fourth, he's been working as a clearinghouse for important INDUCE coverage elsewhere on the Web:
- Declan on INDUCE Act
- EFF's Mock INDUCE Act Lawsuit
- Quote of the Day: Legal Programming Edition
- Crawford on the INDUCE Act: Not With a Sledgehammer, But a Stiletto
- Go Ahead with the INDUCE Act - A View from Overseas
- Supporting the INDUCE Act
- Quote of the Day - CD Burner INDUCE Act (IICA) Edition
- INDUCE Act (IICA) = Patent Extortion, but for Copyrights?
- Opposition to INDUCE Act (IICA) Getting Mainstream Press - Bill Still Moving Through Senate Quickly
- Many Organizations Sign on to Letter Requesting INDUCE Act Hearings
- Lessig on Hollaar's "Sony Revisited" and the INDUCE Act (IICA)
- INDUCE Act (IICA) Press Roundup - July 8, 2004
- Are the Opponents of the INDUCE Act (IICA) Claiming that the Sky is Falling?
- A Few Columns on the INDUCE Act (IICA)
- Not Much INDUCE Act (IICA) News
- The Abridged RIAA Letter on the INDUCE Act (IICA)
- On the Burden of Persuasion for the INDUCE Act (IICA)
- P2P Company Interviewed Re: INDUCE Act (IICA) -- More on RIAA Letter
- Some of the Background of the INDUCE Act (IICA)
- Witness List for INDUCE Act (IICA) Senate Hearing Now Available
- Number of Co-sponsors for INDUCE Act (IICA) Growing
- INDUCE Act (IICA) Press Roundup - Pre-Senate Hearing
- Consumer Groups Issue Statement Against INDUCE Act (IICA)
- Hackers, Lawyers, Society and the INDUCE Act (IICA)
- Copyright Office on INDUCE Act (IICA): It isn't Strong Enough
- Felten's INDUCE Act Hearings Blog Party
- Backing Away from the INDUCE Act (IICA)
- Shredding the INDUCE Act (IICA) - CEA, IEEE-USA, NetCoalition
- Sen. Hatch's Shifting Rhetoric in Favor of the INDUCE Act (IICA)
- Sen. Coleman Opposes INDUCE Act (IICA)
- Entertainment Atty Rips INDUCE Act (IICA): Not Good For Artists
- Les Vadasz on the INDUCE Act (IICA): A Bill That Chills
-
INDUCE Act (IICA): Every New Feature Could Trigger Lawsuits
- Barbie on the INDUCE Act (IICA): From My Cold, Plastic Hands, Senator Hatch
- Brief INDUCE Act (IICA) Roundup - 28 Jul 2004
- Are TV Networks "Inducing" Infringement by Promoting JibJab?
- Fair Use, Normal Use, Competive Use and the INDUCE Act (IICA)
- INDUCE Act (IICA) Press Roundup - 29 July 2004
- Higher Education Groups Oppose INDUCE Act (IICA)
- The Presidential Election, Copyright, INDUCE Act (IICA) and Tech Policy
- A Copyright Fable Relevant to the INDUCE Act (IICA) and Other News
- Tim Wu's INDUCE Act (IICA) Alternative
And finally, there are a few posts that don't fit into any of the other categories but raise important issues nonetheless:
On stories like this, it's easy to get lost in a swirl of "Bad! Worse! Worst!" blog posts from a dozen different blogs linking the same basic story, or to lose track of the bill as it scuttles through the legislative process. The antidote -- well, an antidote, at least -- is in-depth analysis and on-going coverage. Ernie's been flooding the zone on INDUCE and keeping the focus where it belongs: on a bad bill.
UPDATE July 15, 11:45 AM: Added two more stories from the series.
UPDATE July 15, 2:20 PM: Added three INDUCE stories from Copyfight.
UPDATE July 16, 12:05 AM: There's no stopping Ernie. Two more stories.
UPDATE July 18, 4:30 PM: Two more short links to other coverage.
UPDATE July 19, 5:15 PM: Another Hatch's Hit List and another short link.
UPDATE July 22 5:30 PM: Nine (!) more pieces: seven links to other coverage and two more entries on Hatch's Hit List.
UPDATE July 26 12:55 PM: Another eight or nine, depending on how you count.
UPDATE August 3 1:35 PM: Seventeen more, including seven items on Hatch's Hit List.
UPDATE August 8 4:55 PM: Slow week: four more.