Fighting intensifies over how to enforce intellectual property laws

Fighting intensifies over how to enforce intellectual property laws | Technology | Los Angeles Times.

Barack Obama may be the country’s most tech-friendly president ever, as comfortable discussing Net neutrality as Swiss neutrality. But his administration is caught in at least three pitched battles over intellectual property that could leave tech advocates wondering why they were so optimistic about his presidency.

One fight stems from the secretive negotiations over theAnti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which began under President George W. Bush. Copyright holders have pressed for provisions that could force Internet Service Providers to do more to combat online piracy, such as cutting off broadband accounts that are used repeatedly for infringement. Such three-strikes provisions are anathema to tech advocacy groups, which also fear that the agreement would make it harder for them to bring some fair-use balance to the anticircumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

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