The end of the last free media frontier – i-Patriot Act-type sponsors

Author: Jared Fallon

The words we have all feared for so long are increasingly becoming a reality day after day. As forewarned at the 08 Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference by Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, “There’s going to be an i-9/11 event which will act as a catalyst for a radical reworking of the law pertaining to the internet”. Change is in the wind, and several key legislators are busier than ever thinking of new ways on how to use legislation as a tool to regulate the only true free frontier for media we have left.

At the time being, the two main federal bills to keep an eye on are: H.R.4279 and S.522. The first, sponsored by John Conyers Jr., (D-MI), would create an IP Dictator at the Department of Justice while attempting to “enhance remedies for violations of intellectual property laws, and for other purposes.”  S.522, on the other hand, is one of Evan Bayh’s (D-IN) bills and clearly only keeps the best of all of our mutual interests in mind by improving “…the effectiveness of domestic and international intellectual property rights enforcement…”.  It is no coincidence that both of these congressmen have sponsored several bills together and have many friends of reciprocity. More dialogue must be created about these bills for the future of the internet and free media as we know it.