As I noted earlier, the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act (IICA aka INDUCE Act) negotations have failed (Secret INDUCE Act (IICA) Negotiations Fail!). Now, two letters have been sent to the Senate asking that there be no markup as there was no consenus. Hopefully, the Senate will recognize that marking up a seriously flawed bill is quite a bit worse than utterly foolish.

From a coalition of consumer groups, including American Library Association, EFF, and Public Knowledge: American Association of Law Libraries, et. al., Letter to Sen. Hatch and Leahy, RE: S. 2560, Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004, 06 Oct 2004 [PDF]

Moreover, every one of the half-dozen drafts proposed would make fundamental changes to copyright law, with potentially enormous impact on the innovation, creativity, and competition. At this point, we are very concerned that staff may present at tomorrow’s executive business meeting complex legislation: 1) on which there is no consensus; 2) that would do great harm to future technological innovation; and 3) that would not meet the goals that you and Senator Leahy have set out.

Every major change to the Copyright Act in the last century has taken several years to draft and fine tune before it was passed. Even the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) resulted from numerous hearings and conference reports over a three-year period. Given the short period over which S. 2560 has been discussed, the absence of hearings on the new language, and the overall lack of opportunity for the public to comment, we believe it would be in the best interests of all parties to allow a more orderly process to go forward, and to have a hearing with expert testimony on whatever draft results from this process. We can see no other way to achieve true consensus and ensure that the public interest and future technological innovations are protected. We hope you will agree.

At the July 22 hearing, we committed to working with you to craft a legislative alternative to S. 2560. At Chairman Hatch's direction, we have been working virtually around the clock for almost a week in an effort to reach consensus with the copyright community. Notwithstanding everyone's hard work and good intentions, we find ourselves farther apart now than at the outset of this process. Because we are attempting to write legislation dealing with complex and evolving technology, this has proven to be an exceptionally difficult process.

Unfortunately, the recording industry continues to propose language that would not solve the piracy problems in the manner you identified, but instead would effectively put at risk all consumer electronics, information technology products, and Internet products and services that aren't designed to the industry's liking. In fact, the most recent draft put forward by the recording industry at 1:00 am this morning is a large step backwards from previous drafts in that it would jeopardize more legitimate products and would create a flood of litigation, and thus would hurt vital sectors of the U.S. economy. In short, the draft is unacceptable.