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No FAIR USE for PRO IP - March 26, 2008

We don't have it quite from the horse's mouth, but it doesn't look like Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) will try to attach his FAIR USE Act (HR 1201) to the PRO IP bill currently moving through the House. Not according to Rep. Howard Berman at any rate, the chairman of the House IP subcommittee and a principle sponsor of PRO IP.

"I don't think he's going to do that," Berman told Media Wonk Wednesday evening in LA. "He was also concerned about another provision--104--and that's now out of the bill."

Berman's subcommittee passed the PRO IP bill earlier this month by voice vote and without amendment (except the deletion of Section 104), moving it on to the full House Judiciary Committee, which is yet to take it up. Since the markup, Boucher has flirted with the idea of attaching all or parts of HR 1201 to the bill, which would create an exemption to the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision if the purpose of the circumvention were to make fair use of an encrypted work.

Berman said Wednesday that he expects PRO IP to pass the full House before the end of the year more or less as is.
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Meanwhile, Berman remained cagey on his long-term plans for the IP subcommittee. Currently, he serves as chairman of the subcommitte while also holding the chairman's gavel at the full Foreign Affairs Committee under a waver of ordinary House Democratic rules that prohibit dual chairmanships. Berman ascended to the Foreign Affairs post after the death of its previous chairman. Come next year, however, he will have to choose between the two posts.

"I have been hearing things about it, I do have thoughts on it. But I don't think I care to share them," Berman said in response to a question about speculation in Washington that he will give up the IP subcommittee next year. "It's not like Foreign Affairs has nothing to do with intellectual property," he said. "Intellectual property issues are very important in our dealings with other governments."

Berman spoke Wednesday at the Tech Policy Summit sponsored by Tech Policy Central.
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