NEW LAW KILLS IPOD?

Will the Inducing Infringement Act Kill the iPod?

San Francisco – With Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and his colleagues pushing hard to bring the Inducing Infringement of Copyright Act (“Induce Act”) to the full Senate for a vote, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is already dreading the loss of all technologies this legislation has the potential to destroy. Although Hatch wants the public to believe that the legislation will only hurt “the bad guys” in the P2P wars, EFF argues that the Act is so sweeping that “the good guys” will get taken down too. The Induce Act, which would make it illegal to “induce” people to infringe copyright, could potentially outlaw everything from CD burners to the iPod. To dramatize how INDUCE might harm innovators and consumers, EFF attorneys realized they would have to make the threat a reality by becoming devil’s advocates. Today, EFF posted a mock complaint in a lawsuit that could be brought against Apple, accusing the corporation of selling its popular iPod music player to induce people to infringe copyright.

Full Release, Fake Complaint[PDF, 25k]
June 24, 2004