Lawmaker Introduces Bill on Marsh Buffers The New 50-Foot Standard Would Affect Private Property.
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By BRANDON LARRABEE  ATLANTA - Development within 50 feet of coastal marshes would be barred under legislation proposed Wednesday by an Atlanta-area lawmaker.  Rep.
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A handful of lawmakers, law professors, and consumer groups have raised objections to a new U.S. copyright bill that could significantly increase the fines for copyright infringement.The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act (or PRO IP Act ), debated before a congressional subcommittee Thursday, would allow courts to assess copyright infringement damages for each piece of a compilation or derivative work found to infringe copyright, instead of treating the compilation as one infringement.The maximum fine for infringing three songs in one compilation would increase from $150,000 to $450,000 under the bill, introduced Dec. 5, said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a consumer rights advocacy group. The fines for infringing five poems in one compilation would rise from $150,000 to $750,000, said Sohn, referring to a letter signed by 25 IP professors.The bill would also make it easy for courts to forfeit computers and other property alleged to be used for infringement in civil copyright lawsuits, and it would allow the U.S. government to pursue criminal copyright enforcement before the creator registers a work or product with the U.S. Copyright Office.&quot;While we agree that enforcement of intellectual property laws is essential to encouraging creativity, certain provisions in the proposed act risk undermining this essential goal by threatening consumers with an overbroad and inapposite enforcement regime,&quot; Sohn told the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property. &quot;These provisions of the bill ... represent a step away from a rational, realistic copyright regime.&quot;The bill will hurt the consumer electronics industry with companies that make recording and copying devices scared to introduce new products because of a fear of lawsuits, added Representative Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat.&quot;The effect on innovation will be real, and it will be adverse,&quot; Boucher said.But supporters of the bill said it&#39;s needed. Counterfeiting and piracy cost U.S. companies between $200 billion and $250 billion a year, said Representative John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.Conyers, the primary sponsor of the bill, tried to dispel criticism that the legislation was targeted only at music and movie piracy. Counterfeit drugs, automobile parts, and airplane parts are &quot;placing human lives at risk,&quot; he said.Copyright theft also costs hundreds of thousands of jobs, added James Hoffa, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a large trade union. Members of the union deliver DVDs, CDs, and video games from legitimate companies, he said. &quot;When pirated DVDs and CDs are sold on a street corner in an underground economy, we lose jobs,&quot; he said.Government agencies also lose tax revenue through pirated or counterfeit goods, Hoffa said. &quot;Lost tax revenue has a significant and potentially debilitating impact on American working families,&quot; he added. &quot;By most anyone&#39;s calculations, the bridges and roads that our members both build and travel over are in a critical state of disrepair throughout the country.&quot;While Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, called copyright infringement &quot;massive,&quot; others raised concerns that the bill goes too far. Representative Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from Silicon Valley in California, noted that the bill could increase the penalties for infringing a 10-song CD from $150,000 to $1.5 million. &quot;I think that&#39;s unreasonable,&quot; she said.Public Knowledge&#39;s Sohn noted that a Minnesota woman was fined $222,000 for 24 songs in a court case that ended in October. She called on the subcommittee to kill the portion of the bill that would increase copyright damages for compiled works.&quot;I don&#39;t think anybody&#39;s arguing that statutory damages are inadequate,&quot; she said. &quot;I&#39;m not sure that increasing penalties 10 fold or 20 fold does anything other than stop legitimate innovators.&quot;
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A Massachusetts state legislator is pushing a bill that would hold retailers financially liable to card-issuing banks for the costs of a security breach -- a proposal that quickly came under fire from retail groups.
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Unable to agree on sweeping ethics legislation, the House this week will try to pass a narrower bill to shed light on pet projects that lawmakers tuck into spending and tax bills.
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Lawyers who file frivolous lawsuits would be hit with financial penalties under legislation moving through Congress. Supporters say the bill would protect businesses from being threatened with lawsuits that have no merit.
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By Newsday, Melville, N.Y.  Dec. 12--A last-minute bill to strengthen the nation's fisheries and reduce overfishing wasn't everything it could have been, but for legislation passed in the closing days of a lame-duck Congress, it was a decent compromise.
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Fines of up to $500,000 per  violation for indecent material aired on broadcast television  and radio were unveiled by a top U.S. House of Representatives  lawmaker on Tuesday, renewing a campaign to clean up  broadcasting that failed last year.
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WASHINGTON -- Congress was poised to pass a bill last night to revamp management of the nation's marine fisheries and strengthen protections against overfishing of dwindling stocks.
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A new bill in Congress would give cell phone subscribers greater freedom to leave their contracts.
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Four lucky states were slated to share billions in potential royalties courtesy of an offshore drilling expansion signed into law last year, money that could help reverse decades of environmental damage from coastal industry. But as budget planning gets under way, the states are beginning to realize that Congress gave them far more freedom in spending the windfall than the political rhetoric in Washington suggested.
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Lawmakers introduced a bill on Thursday aimed at protecting children from indecent television programs by forcing cable and satellite providers to offer a modified form of la carte programming or make other changes in the way they operate.
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By Shannon Tompkins, Houston Chronicle  Jun. 21--Maybe it was all the effort focused on state park issues that sucked the wind out of the Texas Legislature's usual willingness to meddle with statutes governing hunting, fishing, boating and other outdoor recreation.
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By Nicole Warburton Deseret Morning News  A bill that would earmark the money from a $10 vehicle registration-fee increase, approved last year in Salt Lake County to buy land for the proposed Mountain View Corridor, has surfaced in recent days on the Hill.
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TALLAHASSEE, Florida  - Responding to skyrocketing coastal property values and taxes, Florida lawmakers on Monday passed a proposed constitutional amendment that backers say would cut local property taxes by $12.5 billion over the next five years
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By Blackwell Thomas  SPRINGFIELD - A plan to change how septic tanks are inspected in Illinois has some rural lawmakers raising a stink.
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Three D.C. Council members introduced a bill yesterday that would provide $50 million in public funding for improvements at Verizon Center, a move that supporters said would spur more economic development near the Chinatown arena.
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A bill to crank up penalties for the nation's most polluted air regions &#151; both in California &#151; was introduced Thursday in the Senate by Congress' biggest skeptic of global warming.