Ernest Miller has posted a line-by-line, “obsessively detailed” critique of Orrin Hatch’s introduction to the dumbfuck, nation-destroying new INDUCE Act, which makes it a crime to “induce infringement.”
Such beliefs seem common among distributors of so-called peer-to-peer filesharing (“P2P”) software. [“So-called,” indeed. Hatch isn’t about define what P2P software is because it would end up including things like e-mail, IM, VoIP, HTTP and plenty of other internet protocols. P2P is how much of the internet works.] These programs are used mostly by children and college students – about half of their users are children. [You can say the same things about videogames, as well as other popular technologies like IM and SMS. It is frequently the case that the younger generation adopts new technologies sooner than older users.] Users of these programs routinely violate criminal laws relating to copyright infringement and pornography distribution. [You can say the same thing about plenty of internet protocols, such as HTTP, FTP, SMTP, and so on.] Criminal law defines “inducement” as “that which leads or tempts to the commission of crime.” [Luckily, not every temptation is a crime or there would be more people in jail than free.] Some P2P software appears to be the definition of criminal inducement captured in computer code. [Software is a tool. This is the same as saying that bolt-cutters and crowbars are inducements to burglary.]
(Thanks, Ernest!)