[Infowarrior] - Senator Fido Wants To Create Official Ambassador For Hollywood's Interests

[Richard Forno]

Senator Fido Wants To Create Official Ambassador For Hollywood's Interests

from the what-is-he-smoking dept

Senator Orrin Hatch has taken a back seat on various "intellectual property" issues in the past few years, as some other Senators have stepped up. But, for years, he was Hollywood's "go to" Senator for bad legislation. One of the running gags throughout Rob Reid's awesome novel Year Zero is how Senator Orrin Hatch is called "Senator Fido" because he's "the entertainment industry's pet Senator." Among his list of bad ideas was a plan to destroy the computers of people accused of downloading, a bill called the PIRATE Act which would have given the FBI authority over civil copyright infringement claims so they could go after your kids for downloading, and the infamous INDUCE Act which would have made a ton of stuff illegal, including potentially iPods, FTP, 3D printers and much much more. When asked to defend such craziness, Hatch claimed that it might not work but it still needed to be done. Thankfully, it did not pass. 

And while others in the Senate have been proposing bad IP bills over the past few years, Hatch is now back with a proposal to create a special US Ambassador position solely focused on expanding intellectual property around the globe. The so-called Innovation Through Trade Act (S.660) would create a "Chief Innovation and Intellectual Property Negotiator" who would have the official rank of Ambassador. 

Incredibly, Hatch claims that IP issues aren't getting enough attention when it comes to trade policy....

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http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130326/10400322463/senator-fido-wants-to-create-official-ambassador-hollywoods-interests.shtml

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Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.