Changes To The Intellectual Property Laws That Should Be Enacted Now!

• Get rid of patents. Period. Why the hell do we have them? If no patents existed patent trolls would not exist, and there would be no reason for big corps (or patent trolls) to stifle innovation. Let alone, all it takes is 2 years for an invention to become so generic the patent doesn’t apply any more. Plus it focuses too much on who gets awarded a patent first vs who actually made the invention first. The only way to fix the patent system would be to completely gut it and start over, or get rid of it all together. Notice how the only corporations that support it are big companies like Microsoft and Apple. I think instead of having to actually register a patent, you should be able to go after a company if you can prove you came up with the design/idea first.
• Anyone who files a blatantly fake DMCA notice should be held personally liable for any legal fees (so the lawyer or whoever can’t hide behind a corporate veil). Although I’d imagine it would be possible to remove the corporate veil by naming 500 different laws, I think a specific clause should be made for this. For example, Viacom’s lawyers should be held liable for illegally filing DMCA takedowns to get home movies removed from YouTube.
• People should be allowed to sue in court if they hold an unregistered copyright. The US is very unique in that it doesn’t allow that, you must register to sue.
• Make harsher penalties for violating the DMCA laws. Anyone who files a fake notice maliciously should be thrown in jail. DMCA takedowns are legal documents, but for some bizarre reason the govt. doesn’t punish people very harshly for faking them, even if the intent was malicious.
• Make it so anyone who provides advertising (and other forms of monetization) on a site which steals content (like splogs) also subject to the DMCA laws. Technically speaking right now advertising and such isn’t covered (so Google Adsense doesn’t have to accept DMCA notices, even though they do).
• Make common law trademarks more powerful.

There are a few other things that should be done, but those are the main items.

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