Evan Bayh, imo, doesn't have the sense God gave a rabbit, but Leahy isn't usually a big proponent of draconian nonsense, so I'm wondering what problem the bill is intended to address.  What national problem do we have because "big media" copyright holders are unable to keep up with legal action against infringers in the U.S. and the nation must therefore help them out through the federal government?

Seems to me the most important thing this bill does is allow the government to bring civil suits on copyright infringement, and I'm also wondering why that's important.

I think we can safely assume the target of this bill is not the college kid downloading a single 99 cent song for free, but the services that provide a way for tens of thousands of college kids to download hundreds of copyrighted songs.

But what's the reason for authorizing the government to bring civil cases?  The linked article says it's because it's so difficult to prove criminal intent.  Has that been a big problem so far?  Have large-scale copyright infringers actually gotten off in the past because the government couldn't prove criminal intent?

If the record industry has had trouble cleaning this up through civil suits, why should the government be able to do any better?

Or is the thought that the civil suit and confiscation provisions together would allow the government to not only shut down one of those large-scale violators but also confiscate the computers of all its college kid customers, and the widely publicized example of one or two of those completed successfully would pretty much wipe out the whole pirate industry by scaring the bejesus out of its customers?

Which brings me back to why the government needs to be brought into this at all.  Is it impossible for, say, the record companies to do the same thing, have the customers' computers forfeit, either under current law or some new statute?

I don't actually have a lot of sympathy for college students or anyone else who downloads and uses other people's property for free (and I very much doubt there are many out there who've only done it once).  My objection is using scarce government resources to deal with the problem.

A proposed law would empower the federal government to seize your computer if you use it to violate a copyright law by downloading a song or movie for which you didn't pay. Doesn't that penalty seem a bit excessive?

No. Don't they take away guns from people who shouldn't have them? And don't they take away your license or your car if you're a repeated drunk driver? How is this any different from those instances?