What is Hatch's Hit List? Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has introduced the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act (IICA, née INDUCE Act) in the Senate. The bill would make it illegal to "intentionally induce" copyright infringement, but is worded so broadly that it would have all sorts of unintended consequences, one of which is to severely limit, cripple or kill innovation in many different fields. Hatch's Hit List is a daily exploration of some of the technologies and fields that the bill would likely affect. See also, Introducing Hatch's Hit List and the Hatch's Hit List Archives. Send list suggestions to ernest.miller 8T aya.yale.edu.

Today on Hatch's Hit List: Disaster Relief Communication Systems

A couple of months ago, technology columnist Dan Gillmor began writing about a project to establish and test communications in a simulated disaster or war zone called "Strong Angel II" (Communications Experiment's Life-Saving Goals). Communications are critically important for disaster relief. So, it's a very good thing that we have events like Strong Angel II where,

On a remote piece of land in Hawaii, a civilian-military team will install and test a communications system that could make a huge difference in future conflicts and other disasters, human-made or natural.

Good stuff, right? Well, one of the goals of the project is:

Using off-the-shelf hardware and software, including some technology developed in Silicon Valley, the team will install the system under deliberately harsh circumstances. It will be designed to help get crucial information where it's needed, securely and reliably, but not in a way where it's subject to central control....From the standpoint of tomorrow's communications, Strong Angel has enormous potential. If it's possible to create what amounts to a cheap, ad-hoc, reliable and secure information network under difficult circumstances, human freedom itself could get a boost. Such a system could help bring a freer flow of information to places where dictatorships or lack of a standard infrastructure have kept information in the hands of a few.

Again, sounds good. However, any such system will likely have many copyright infringing possibilities, especially if a cheap and reliable version is made readily available to the public. If you can avoid dictators, you can certainly avoid the RIAA.

Although the developers of such systems want them to be open source, that simply may not be acceptable to copyright holders:

A major longer-term goal of Strong Angel is to create a software platform on a laptop computer that contains all open-source -- free for download and modification -- software. This is obviously needed if the experiment works well enough for deployment in many parts of the planet where proprietary software is too costly.

Such robust, resiliant networking software will certainly have to be restricted. Making it available to civilians will only encourage them to use it for copyright infringement in between disasters.

Clearly, access to disaster relief communication systems will have to be restricted. The potential for copyright abuse is simply too high to allow anyone to use such systems. Anyone who says otherwise is clearly in cahoots with copyright pirates.

Want to know more about the INDUCE Act?
Please see LawMeme's well-organized index to everything I've written on the topic, including Hatch's Hit List: The LawMeme Reader's Guide to Ernie Miller's Guide to the INDUCE Act.