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Amongst the many erudite thoughts to drip from the quill of Thomas Jefferson, only one has ever gotten me hot under the collar:

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

Well, that’s all fine and dandy if your estates keep you rolling in tobacco so you can crank out political philosophy all day (lifted, by the way, from the likes of Locke, Rousseau and Machiavelli), but if you’re the taper-maker, you’re going to be a little miffed if someone’s knocking off your products to the point that you’ve got to lay off your workers and people are suing you blind because fugazi tapers with your logos are burning down houses.

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This Monday, the White House signed into law the PRO-IP Act, which will go a long way in helping to curb the problem of counterfeit goods.  Unfortunately, what most folks who watch this area of the law see is a piece of legislation to loathe as much as they loathe the music industry, as something that might impede them from enjoying the media they want, regardless of whether they paid for it or not.  So whineth the pundits at Portfolio.com:

But how much will the new law, the PRO-IP Act, actually do to combat digital piracy? Is it the silver bullet the music business needs to save an industry that is shrinking by hundreds of millions of dollars per year? My answers: Not much, and no.

Nay, nay, dear heart: lift your angry eyes from your iPod and see that this legislation is much bigger than Britney.

This legislation isn’t to save the record industry; it’s to make sure the government is doing it’s job to protect consumers.  It’s to make sure that the replacement parts in your car are legit, and don’t end up causing horrific accidents.  It’s to make sure that the medications you take are legit, and don’t end up killing you.  Most importantly, it’s about saving American jobs (I put concern of country above my own personal well-being, but that’s just me).

Luckily, there are folks out there that get it.  Stephen Koff of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reminds us of the stakes:

Ohio companies including Gorman-Rupp Co., a Mansfield pump manufacturer, and Dana Corp., a Toledo maker of auto parts, could benefit if the bill stops foreign companies from stealing their engineering, packaging and sales literature.

So could Ford, Bendix and smaller companies such as Will-Burt Co. of Orville, whose sales of a lighting system in China declined from $1 million in 2001 to less than $250,000 in 2004 after a Chinese company that was supposed to market Will-Burt products there started selling Will-Burt knockoffs instead.

The bill, pushed by Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich for several years, grew out of complaints by businesses that found themselves competing with illegal, foreign-made products that looked just like their own — down to the UPC codes in some cases.

Well, we’re thankful for heroes like Sen. George Voinovich who are looking out for American manufacturers and workers, as well as Sens. Leahy, Specter and Bayh, who also were the original champions of the legislation.  They understand that it’s about protecting the small and medium businesses that keep our families employed and our economy going - despite the best efforts of mortgage speculators.

As for Mr. Jefferson?  Ironically enough, he was our first pirate hunter, going after the Barbary Pirates.*  So I guess he did know the value of property and commerce.

* Being a Trekkie geek from Boston, it titilates me to no end that he sent both the USS Constitution and the USS Enterprise to throw a Bean-Town beat-down on the Pasha of Tripoli.

As we head into the weekend, the PRO-IP Act (S. 3325) still awaits being signed by the President, and there’s nothing left to do but…well, you get it.  But what I don’t get is why it’s taking so long to sign the bill?  Manufacturers are for it (which should be reason enough for any President to sign it), labor is for it, the whole dang business community is for it, and it’s a great piece of bi-partisan legislation (but to the best of my knowledge, though, I don’t know if the counterfeiters have weighed in yet).  National Journal’s Congress Daily ran a piece Wednesda on how industry is hopping up and down in expectation of a signing (subscription). Excerpt:

Key House and Senate Republicans, joined by some of Washington’s top lobbyists, are pressing President Bush to sign legislation aimed at bolstering government efforts to combat counterfeiting and piracy. The bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent and won overwhelming House approval just before lawmakers left Washington Friday. But the measure has faced administration opposition because of language that would replace the government’s interagency council for coordinating intellectual property enforcement with a high-level White House official who would oversee a broad IP agenda. President Bush has until Tuesday to sign or veto the bill or it automatically becomes law.

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, an original co-sponsor of the bill, wrote Tuesday to White House Chief of Staff Bolten urging him to recommend that Bush approve the legislation, which Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy introduced in July. Signing the bill “would be a fitting achievement and legacy,” he said. House Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith, who co-sponsored his chamber’s version, wrote to Bush the same day, arguing that the new IP post is “not merely desirable, but necessary. … Only an official who answers directly to the president will have the authority to transcend agencies’ boundaries [and] overcome bureaucratic inertia and barriers.” Smith added that the position is not without precedent, citing several examples of Congress providing direct statutory authority to the Executive Office of the President, including the creation of the Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Trade Representative.

The NAM has been a leader on the PRO-IP bill since our members came to us over a year and a half ago and asked Gov. Engler to help find a solution to the counterfeiting problem.  We’re positively thrilled that the Congress passed the PRO-IP Act in the way they did – in a bi-partisan manner and in overwhelming numbers.  We’re absolutely confident that once it’s signed, it’ll go a long way to crack down on counterfeit products that not only threaten American businesses, but American workers and consumers, as well.  Most importantly, this legislation will help American businesses be more competitive in the global market, which is critical in our current economic unease/predicament/crisis.  In the meantime, I’ll be kneeling angelically by my bed.

Warning: Clip Contains Profanity, Irony

Rap Rock/Southern Rock/Country Rock/Nu Metal aficionados will appreciate the Detroit Cowboy’s special attention to the moral health of American kids.  Intellectual property holders will cherish his satirical take on the crisis of counterfeiting and piracy afflicting the nation, if not his colorful language.

UPDATE:  Humorless software execs, angry fashion designers, seen headed towards Michigan.  Check back often for breaking news.

Following on the Institute for Policy Innovation’s homage to “Talk Like a Pirate Day” and their timely press release on the protection of intellectual property rights, is there not a better day than today to blast away at the scourge of counterfeiting and piracy?

American manufacturers have been taking a hammering due to piracy, to the tune of over $250 billion a year in lost revenues and an estimated loss of up to 750,000 jobs so far.  The House jumped to the rescue, passing the PRO-IP Act by a vote of 410-11, and now the Senate is trying to do the same.  Note the operative word, “trying.”

The “Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008,” (S. 3325) will go a long way to help shore up IP rights of manufacturers.  But it’s not just about manufacturers, it’s about workers and consumers.  Oh, and let’s not forget the economy, either.  Unfortunately, the Senate IP bill is hitting some snags on the GOP side of the aisle, even though this is truly a bi-partisan bill.  And that’s the sad part, as this is something that everyone agrees needs to be fixed.

The Senate IP bill is definitely the last, best chance this year to help aforementioned workers, consumers and economy.  If we don’t get it done in the next week, the tides won’t be right for this for probably another two years, what with the new Congress and Administration focusing on bigger fish to fry. And that’s going to hurt a lot of folks.

Specifically, workers are going to be hurt because counterfeit junk displaces the quality products that US workers make (and are often unwittingly bought by consumers).  A study by economics firm LECG figured that cutting piracy by even 5-10% would create at least 174,000 new tax-paying jobs a year, after 3 years.  In case you didn’t know, pirates don’t pay taxes.  I guess that’s the allure of being a brigand, although I don’t know if scurvy factors in on the downside.

Consumers are going to be hurt because a critical check on counterfeit auto parts, airplane parts, food, medical devices, electrical supplies and pharmaceuticals will be missing.  And don’t forget the economy.  LECG also estimates that cutting piracy by 10% would increase the overall US economic output by at least $27 billion, as domestic production would reclaim the market from pirate imports.

You’d think that in the face of all the harm that piracy has done to the US economy, American workers and consumers, Congress would try to find a way around the minor roadblocks and, paraphrasing H.L. Mencken, “spit on their hands, haul up the black flag and start slitting throats.”

The Heritage Foundation hosted FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell today at the weekly Blogger’s Luncheon, ostensibly to apologize for the FCC rapping Comcast on the knuckles, all in the name of Net Neutrality. Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate joined Commissioner McDowell in voting against the majority in demonizing Comcast, as they saw that there was no evidence that Comcast actually did anything wrong. For those of you who have better things to do on a summer day than pay attention to the FCC, here’s a quick and dirty recap of the issue: Comcast network managers spotted a huge spike in bandwidth during a period of peak Internet usage, tracing it to kids downloading hundreds of megabytes of movies and music from BitTorrent, a media downloading site. Acting as traffic cops, Comcast decided to slow down the flow of bits from BitTorrent in favor of traffic from other applications and sites that are more dependant upon the speedy flow of bits, such as VoIP.

In the words of Net Neutrality pundits, they’ve committed the sin of Internet Discrimination. It would seem as if the FCC agrees as well. In a series of public hearings a la traveling road show, Comcast was held up for the masses to pelt them with rocks and garbage while yelling “burn the witch.” In a turn worthy of John Cleese and Eric Idle, the FCC on August 1 decided to do just that, and ordered Comcast to stop impeding traffic on the Internet and make transparent their policies to their customers, lest they be whacked with fines. Okay, maybe it wasn’t a burning per se, more like an uncomfortable stay in the sauna, but the intent was there.

But what did Comcast do to deserve this punishment? They violated the FCC’s Broadband Policy Principles. Let me reiterate the last part: PRINCIPLES. Not laws, not regulations, not rules, but principles (See ‘em here). They were developed with no public hearing, no notice of rule making, no due process. Legally speaking, they’re most likely unenforceable. The sad part is that Chairman Martin yelled “witch,” too.

But Comcast sinned, did they not? Phooey. In reality, they’ve practiced the virtue of Responsible Network Management. In their role as a traffic cop on their stretch of the Information Superhighway, they saw a bandwidth hog that would’ve backed up rush-hour traffic and they took it out of the HOV lane.

Commissioner McDowell said that this will be very easy for Comcast to appeal, as the FCC has no rules in place for this, thus no authority to enforce anything. Citing the “Brand X” Supreme Court Decision (stating that cable Internet companies provide “information services” governed by Title I of the Communications Act and are not “telecommunications services” under Title II), the cable companies are under no obligation to treat all traffic equally. That’s the law.

Talk to anyone who knows anything about network management and they’ll tell you that the Internet is ALL ABOUT discrimination – choosing which packet needs priority over another. For instance, it’s more important that VoIP packets get priority over a packet with part of the best sports clip ever filmed because a VoIP call requires complete synchronicity lest confusion, echoing and dead silence ruin the call. If my sport clip packet is delayed because of your VoIP packet got priority, the clip may download in 12 seconds instead of 10. That’s something I can live with.

But what if this is some kind of nefarious plot from Comcast to slow down the Internet sites that compete with them? Commissioner McDowell says to check out the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Act as your remedy. Tried and tested, it’s been around since 1890 and is reasonably sure to have the most evil of corporate malfeasors quaking in their Bruno Magli wingtips as soon as they see the summons.

Maybe in the end, the Comcast decision will be a good thing – if upheld, it’ll show Congress that the process works and the FCC is protecting the interests of the Internet consumer, and there’s no need for intrusive legislation. I suggested this to Commissioner McDowell, and he told me in so many words to go and click my ruby heels together (in a polite way, of course). “Appeasement doesn’t work,” were his exact words. Ah, well.