Many Organizations Sign on to Letter Requesting INDUCE Act Hearings

A plethora of technology companies and civil liberties organizations have sent a letter to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) requesting that he hold hearings on the IICA (née INDUCE Act). Read the letter at EFF (one of the signatories): Letter to Senator Hatch, Re: S. 2560, the "Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004". The letter argues among other things that,

This new threat would chill innovation and drive investment in technology (and accompanying jobs) overseas. By combining (1) a new and separate cause of action for "intentional inducement," (2) a lower civil, rather than higher criminal, standard of liability, and (3) a circumstantially "reasonable" test, S. 2650 would seem to ensure that massive and intrusive discovery proceedings, and a jury trial, would await any innovator or investor who introduces to the market a product that some copyright owner, someplace, believes will "induce" infringement. (There are many, many more copyright owners than there are patent owners, and the burden of proof to establish at least a prima facie case of copyright infringement is minimal rather than significant and specific as in patent cases.)

via Copyfight