Congress unlikely to pass peer-to-peer piracy bill before Thanksgiving holiday News
Congress unlikely to pass peer-to-peer piracy bill before Thanksgiving holiday

[JURIST] US Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters said Thursday during an intellectual property conference [PDF] at the John Marshall School of Law that Congress would not enact the Inducing Infringement Copyrights Act [PDF], also known as the Induce Act, before the Thanksgiving holiday. The Act is Congress’ attempt at confronting peer-to-peer networks filled with pirated music, movies and other media by prohibiting the intentional inducement of another person to violate copyright law. CNET News.com has more here.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Georgia became first US state to ban lynching

On December 20, 1893, Georgia became the first state in the Union to pass a law against lynching, making the act punishable by four years in prison. The statute was not particularly effective—read the text of the 1899 pamphlet Lynch Law in Georgia by anti-lynching activist Ida Wells-Barnett.