The music industry came very close to offloading the costs of enforcing its view of copyright onto you, the taxpayer.
Credit for their failure (so far) must go to a Republican, Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota.
Under Senate rules "non-controversial" measures can be passed without debate, without even a hearing. And the industry's so-called "Pirate Act," which would allow the Justice Department to launch civil suits against anyone the industry accuses of leaving files out there to be shared, was sailing along under that rule -- no hearings, no debate.
Imagine. No more RIAA suits. No more RIAA costs. John Ashcroft would do it, with your money, to anyone he wished. Maybe to you. Maybe you have files in a shared directory. Maybe he can get the money out of your kids, ripping your life apart, at the behest of "recording artists" like Sen. Orrin Hatch.
This abomination was sailing along toward passage, under cover of media darkness, "non-controversial."
Coleman stopped it. Now there will be a debate.
A debate will give users around the country the chance to put their Senators' feet to the fire, starting with Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat.
Leahy, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, has spoken out on behalf of this bill, calling the RIAA's problems in enforcement "an intolerable predicament."
Under civil law, by the way, cases don't have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Under civil law, it only takes "a preponderance of the evidence." Yet civil law results can destroy you, and your family, just as easily as criminal actions can.
And it is this attack on fair use that Leahy was prepared to endorse, calling it "non-controversial."
The man should be ashamed.
But -- and this is the big but -- this thing could still pass. It could pass this year. And it will pass this year, unless some very loud voices -- yours -- are heard -- and right now.