To the members of the committee:
The bill introduced by Senator Hollings of the Commerce committee will have several negative effects:
- You will further alienate the American people by codifying the notion that we are all guileless thieves who cannot be trusted in our homes.
How do you plan to gain the respect and trust of the people who vote for you if you consider us all potential fellons?
- You will reduce the fertile American software industry to a single firm, kill innovation, and kill off the jobs of thousands of honest women and men through your meddling.
The provisions of the Hollings Bill will make software development impossible for all but one or two firms.
- You will not stop China from pirating digital works though this bill.
If China worries you, then do not punish your own people. If software, music and movie piracy by China is a problem, then the Executive Branch can go to the World Trade Organization to seek redress.
Again, and again, the people with the technical and institutional knowledge of hardware and software try to educate the Congress that interference in the development of hardware, software and the Internet is a fool’s errand. But you insist on passing laws contrary to sense, and the intent of our founders.
So again, I’m asking you to pay no attention to the tantrums of a group of people whose fortune does not come from hard work, but the rigging of intellectual property laws to grind royalties out of the imagination of a man who has been dead for the better part of thiry years.
The people who create value are in the here and now. The Hollings bill will put an end to the work of honest Americans and relegate this country to also-ran status.
