IP vs. the iPod

From the good peo­ple of the EFF:
Sen­a­tor Orrin Hatch’s new Induc­ing Infringe­ment of Copy­right Act (S.2560, Induce Act) would make it a crime to aid, abet, or induce copy­right infringe­ment. He wants us all to think that the Induce Act is no big deal and that it only tar­gets “the bad guys” while leav­ing “the good guys” alone. He says that it doesn’t change the law; it just clar­i­fies it.
He’s wrong.
Right now, under the Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Sony Corp. v. Uni­ver­sal City Stu­dios, Inc. (the Beta­max VCR case), devices like the iPod and CD burn­ers are 100% legal — not because they aren’t some­times used for infringe­ment, but because they also have legit­i­mate uses. The Court in Sony called these “sub­stan­tial non-infringing uses.” This has been the rule in the tech­nol­ogy sec­tor for the last 20 years. Bil­lions of dol­lars and thou­sands of jobs have depended on it. Indus­tries have blos­somed under it. But the Induce Act would end that era of inno­va­tion. Don’t let this hap­pen on your watch — tell your Sen­a­tors to fight the Induce Act!

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