ButtUgly: Main_blogentry_200307

Patent Office: Record Industry suing kids makes them look bad, therefore peer-to-peer is a threat to national security

Err... What?

The United States Patent and Trademark Office claims that file-sharing sites could be setting up children for copyright infringement lawsuits and compromising national security.

"A decade ago, the idea that copyright infringement could become a threat to national security would have seemed implausible," Patent and Trademark Director Jon Dudas said in a report released this week. "Now, it's a sad reality."

The report, which the patent office recently forwarded to the U.S. Department of Justice, states that peer-to-peer networks could manipulate sites so children violate copyright laws more frequently than adults. That could make children the target in most copyright lawsuits and, in turn, make those protecting their material appear antagonistic, according to the report.

(In all fairness I think they are making two separate points, the latter of which makes a lot of sense (Stop using P2P in your corporate computer, you dumbasses! You don't know what that thing has eaten!), but the way the article is written certainly makes it look like kids are a national security threat!)

(Via Bruce Schneier, who asks whether USPTO was bribed by the entertainment industry to write this report. I would also like to suggest that Informationweek hires a better editor.)