Battleangel

So, I don’t believe anyone has failed to notice that U.S. is pondering souping up the its DMCA restrictions with a barrage of new proposals (CNet). The proposed law, among other things:

• Permits wiretaps in investigations of copyright crimes, trade secret theft and economic espionage. It would establish a new copyright unit inside the FBI and budgets $20 million on topics including creating “advanced tools of forensic science to investigate” copyright crimes.
• Amends existing law to permit criminal enforcement of copyright violations even if the work was not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.
• Boosts criminal penalties for copyright infringement originally created by the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 from five years to 10 years (and 10 years to 20 years for subsequent offenses). The NET Act targets noncommercial piracy including posting copyrighted photos, videos or news articles on a Web site if the value exceeds $1,000.
• Creates civil asset forfeiture penalties for anything used in copyright piracy. Computers or other equipment seized must be “destroyed” or otherwise disposed of, for instance at a government auction. Criminal asset forfeiture will be done following the rules established by federal drug laws.
• Says copyright holders can impound “records documenting the manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in” infringements.

While this for now is a proposal and a strictly American matter, one can be sure that should this pass it would quickly rise to the WIPO mouthpiece, in order to attempt to secure America’s waning position, and consequently trickle back down to all industrialized states. At least those states that wouldn’t want a U.S. carrier group to make a hostile visit or be shown the same international respect and U.S. deceit as North Korea. A kiss of death from a desperate, declining hegemon as it were. Propping up an equally desperate business model.