It has barely been a month since the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act (IICA, née INDUCE Act) came out of nowhere to threaten technological innovation. Now, some of the brief history of the bill is coming to light.

Dan Gillmor has published an email from Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, detailing how the bill's supporters tried to sneak through the Senate (Difference of Opinion):

The RIAA tried a sneak attack. Their new head Bainwold and others convinced Hatch, Leahy and the Senate leadership to support this legislation -- I think they told them the high tech community supported it as the Business Software Alliance supported the bill. All of this happened before any tech company had even seen it.

I think I was the first to see it when I met with Hatch's guy on June 15. He showed it to me and told me it would be introduced the next day and voted on in the Senate in days. Immediately with him there reading the draft I told him we would oppose it. I said I was shocked the BSA could support it. He then delayed the bill a few days and it was only introduced the third week in June.

In light of the BSA's support of the legislation, the New York Times questions the BSA's latest software "piracy" study (Software Group Enters Fray Over Proposed Piracy Law). The article also addresses many of the concerns regarding the INDUCE Act:

"I think the senators were totally misled about what this legislation is about," Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School, said. "This would not be a tiny, targeted change. It would be a massive change that would totally sidestep the Betamax ruling."

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