"Copyright holders would receive carte blanche to use aggressive tactics to stop the illegal distribution of their works on online services like Morpheus and Kazaa under legislation outlined today by Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.). "

This is an extremely bad idea because it undermines the rule of law. Would the copyright industries really be held liable if they did this right now? Absolutely not. A goverment stamp of approval means this sort of behavior is "OK." The government should never advocate that citizens take the law into their own hands.

This is also an extremely bad idea because this sort of pressure is only going to cause the pirates to develop more mature technologies. The copyright holders cannot out-tech the pirates in the long term. The result will be that copyright law will go from being very difficult to enforce to being absolutely impossible to enforce.

If you are a pirate, you can read all of this as good news, essentially.

Proposal to allow pro-copyright vigilanti squads...