The rhetoric of naming.

Don’t you just love the names that legislatures give their laws? Like 2003′s “Clear Skies Act,” which in fact weakened the Clean Air Act’s provisions against air pollution. Well, yesterday the President signed into law the “Pro-IP Act,” which, if it did what its name says it does, would advance the purposes of intellectual property laws. But all the “Pro-IP Act” does is increase substantially the already substantial penalties for piracy of copyrighted and patented products. The purpose of copyright, according to the U.S. Constitution, is to promote “[t]o promote the progress of science and useful arts.” Yesterday’s post should make clear I don’t think increased penalties for downloading music or posting videos with copyrighted music is the kind of change that advances copyright’s purposes. But if Congress says so, it must be so, right?