The Obama administration is apparently out of ideas on how to protect Big Content from online piracy. So now it’s asking for your help.
Victoria Espinel, the nation’s copyright czar, reached out to Wired late Monday to explain that Uncle Sam is seeking the public’s input for ideas on how to combat intellectual property theft.
It’s a problem costing industry billions annually — assuming that pirated material would have been purchased.
“Recommendations may include, but need not be limited to: legislation, regulation, guidance, executive order, Presidential memoranda, or other executive action, including, but not limited to, changes to agency policies, practices or methods,” Espinel said.
Because we are good public citizens here at Wired, we’ve come up with our Top Methods to Eradicate Online Piracy.
In no particular order, here they are:
- Decriminalize drugs, thereby enlightening pirates that the crap they’re torrenting is not worth the bandwidth it’s streaming on.
- Or require Hollywood to produce something worth buying.
- Seed torrent sites with millions of videos labeled as the latest TV shows, blockbuster movies, and hot video games that are actually just 10-second clips of Chris Dodd, the Motion Picture Association of America chief, and Cary Sherman, the Recording Industry Association of America chief, declaring anybody and everybody a copyright scofflaw.
- Immediately report to the authorities your neighbors and relatives who complain they wished they had a faster internet connection. After all, unless they’re torrenting, there’s no need for speed.
- Change the Copyright Act to make it a $150,000 civil offense to pirate a single music track. (Whoops. That’s already the law.)
- Require internet service providers to redirect websites the U.S. attorney general concludes are facilitating online copyright and trademark infringement. That provision, which would break the internet’s unified naming system, was a part of the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, which died a loud death in January. So what if the plan would make the internet more susceptible to hackers. Mickey Mouse must live forever.
- Outlaw porn.
- Invade Iraq.
- Burn all online movies, music and books.
- Teach children to narc on their file-sharing parents.
- Sentence copyright thieves to watch consecutively: Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Live Free or Die Hard and A Good Day to Die Hard.
Photo: AJC1/Flickr