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Although copyright laws have been around for a long time the Millenium Copyright Act does put a different complexion on things. The RIAA and the entertainment industry are responsible for this and it seems the intent was to enable cheap prosecution of evil wicked downloading pirates, Now anyone can cheaply pursue protection of their intellectual property and of course the corporate lawyers are jumping on to this one big time. Using the spammers creed if they sue enough people they will recover sufficient awards to make it worthwhile even after the lawyers fees and the lawyers are telling them this is free money. As the people getting sued are outside of the company's customer base they are considered inconsequential. The Act has been around for about 5 years now and it's popularity is starting to catch on. The backlash is in the problems with many of the names that everyone thought were public domain that can now be succesfully prosecuted. The French wine industry is making class action noises about the use of their Provincial names being employed outside of the provincial boundaries. Bordeaux style wine will not be cause for exemption any more than UP style locomotive. The Italians and Germans have also made similar noises. There is a little town in England that invented a quite popular and easily produced cheese that caught on quite well. That town could own most of the western world, it's name...Cheddar. One interesting thing about the Act is that it doesn't exclude common carriers. You may never be able to sue the Post Office because you didn't like your mail but Internet Service Providers have been succesfully prosecuted if found to be aware of and allow unlawful use of their service. There is a little village in Alberta Canada that might be upset if they discovered that UP had ever issued a waybill with the word "Anthracite" capitalised and therefore infringing? Personally I think the UP colour scheme leaves a lot to be desired so I don't have any UP logos.
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