« High disdain, from sense of injur'd merit | Main | The ghost of Camelot... »

Conyers: Making the world safe for Gucci

By Michael J. Smith on Thursday August 14, 2008 04:14 PM

J Alva Scruggs passed this along, on Rep John Conyers' "Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008":
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-4279&show-changes=0

It adds civil forfeiture, in the no-trial-needed drug war style, to intellectual property laws.

I was a little surprised that Conyers drove this one through. I'd never considered him that much of a thug. But after looking at his sponsors...

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00004029 He's getting big money from MGM, Murdoch and the American Intellectual Property Law Assn, inter alia.

J Alva ain't kiddin' about this wildly draconian war on, among other things, bogus designer labels. Here's an excerpt from the bill:
(1) CIVIL FORFEITURE PROCEEDINGS- (A) The following property is subject to forfeiture to the United States:

`(i) Any counterfeit documentation or packaging, and any counterfeit label or illicit label and any article to which a counterfeit label or illicit label has been affixed, which a counterfeit label or illicit label encloses or accompanies, or which was intended to have had such label affixed, enclosing, or accompanying.

`(ii) Any property constituting or derived from any proceeds obtained directly or indirectly as a result of a violation of subsection (a).

`(iii) Any property used, or intended to be used, to commit or facilitate the commission of a violation of subsection (a) that is owned or predominantly controlled by the violator or by a person conspiring with or aiding and abetting the violator in committing the violation....

Post a comment

Note also that comments with three or more links may be held for "moderation" -- a strange term to apply to the ghost in this blog's machine. Seems to be a hard-coded limitation of the blog software, unfortunately.

About

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on Thursday August 14, 2008 04:14 PM.

The previous post in this blog was High disdain, from sense of injur'd merit.

The next post in this blog is The ghost of Camelot....

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

Creative Commons License

This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Powered by
Movable Type 3.31