The Daily Populous Thursday December 3rd, 2020 night edition
Authored by techdirt.com and submitted by psychothumbs

'Tis The Season: Congress Looks To Sneak In Unconstitutional Copyright Reform Bill Into 'Must Pass' Spending Bill

If you have to sneak your transformational copyright bill into a "must pass" government spending bill, it seems fairly evident that you know the bill is bad. Earlier we talked about how the White House is trying to slip a Section 230 repeal into the NDAA (military appropriations) bill, and now we've heard multiple people confirm that there's an effort underway to slip the CASE Act into the "must pass" government appropriations bill (the bill that keeps the government running).

What does keeping the government running have to with completely overhauling the copyright system to enable massive copyright trolling? Absolutely nothing, but it's Christmas season, and thus it's the time for some Christmas tree bills in which Senators try to slip in little favors to their funders by adding them to must-pass bills.

We've detailed the many problems with the CASE Act, including how it would ratchet up copyright trolling in a time when we should actually be looking for ways to prevent copyright trolling. But the much larger issue is the fact that the bill is almost certainly unconstitutional. It involves the executive branch trying to route around the courts to set up a judicial body to handle disputes about private rights. That's not allowed.

At the very least, however, there are legitimate concerns about the overreach of the CASE Act, and, as such, those supporting it should at least be willing to discuss those issues honestly and debate them fairly. Slipping them into a must-pass government spending bill certainly suggests that they know that they cannot defend the bill legitimately, and need to cheat to make it law.

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Filed Under: appropriations, case act, christmas tree bill, copyright, copyright troll, must pass, spending

TinyCollection on December 2nd, 2020 at 15:25 UTC »

The only copyright bill I want to see passed limits all copyright to 40 years. Patents are only valid for 20 years so why the hell is copyright basically forever.

pachewychomp on December 2nd, 2020 at 15:20 UTC »

So who in Congress introduced the bill?

vryeesfeathers on December 2nd, 2020 at 14:07 UTC »

> It involves the executive branch trying to route around the courts to set up a judicial body to handle disputes about private rights

Copyright that can (will) be used to censor internet content. This is like mandatory arbitration in contracts.