Last week we questioned why Congress seemed to think that the White House should be playing the role of copyright cop. Yet, apparently, the House of Representatives didn't think it was a question worth asking, as it has [url=http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9939265-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20 target=_new]passed the PRO IP bill[/url] by an overwhelming vote, 410 to 10. It seems like our Congressional Representatives felt that, once they got rid of one bad portion of the bill, that the rest of it must be perfectly fine. This bill has a ton of problems, expanding copyright law and the executive branch's authority in ways that are pretty clearly unnecessary. It is, in effect, a bill to prop up the obsolete business model of one particular industry, so it's rather disappointing that our Representatives have rushed through to approve it with little discussion or debate over whether it's even necessary. Either way, it seems unlikely to get much further, as the Justice Department has already come out against the bill, one would hope that even if the Senate approves a version of the bill, the President would veto it.

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In the meantime, though, given just how much damage arbitrary expansions of copyright law have done, you would think that Congress would at least want to spend some time exploring the issues before rushing through new laws. Tragically, it seems that entertainment industry lobbyists still have politicians convinced that stronger copyright is naturally good.

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