Moving is such a mess it's easy to lose sight of why I'm doing this law school thing. And then things like this happen and I remember what it's about.
This law would make it an automatic felony to have uploaded a copyrighted file. A felony. Not just a crime, or a civil liability (as copyright violations have been considered in the US until recently), but a felony. With jail time. With the various other consequences of a felonious history including the loss of the right to vote.
It's interesting though because many stereotypes about partisan politics don't hold here. Usually the conservative right is the propoent for civil-liberty-restricting legislation. In this case the law was sponsored by 2 Democrats (Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and Howard Berman (D-Calif.)). I'm incredibly disappointed by this fact. I don't like being a knee-jerk supporter of a single party, but because of issues like reproductive freedom I generally find it necessary to unilaterally support the Democrats in order to have a solid-enough voting block to prevent Republican-led incursions on many of my other freedoms. But how can I support the re-election of Democrats such as these who would seem to be doing the Right's dirty work? Ironically, the allies here would be the true conservatives who would prefer to have a less-meddling government in the affairs of the individual.
Edit: Later in the day I came upon this article on Salon about how the RIAA is clogging the courts with their P2P subpoenas. The volume is staggering, with 75 more added each day. If the above law was passed, an entire generation could be disenfranchised within a year. (Unless, as it seems, they are Time Warner [AOL] customers....?)
Another edit: Although before I start lauding the elephants outright, there was also this article in Salon. This incident bears striking resemblance to the showdown in Texas when the Republicans called out the police when the Democrats weren't governing to their satisfaction. For some reason, Republicans seem to think they are entitled to do this. (Yesterday involved calling Capitol Police when Democrats had withdrawn to a library in the Capitol to protest procedural heavy-handedness.)