This might end up good for developers but right now I think the best thing would be creating incentives for banks (that should already be doing this) to loan money to businesses.

President Obama has claimed on multiple occasions that he wants to support small businesses, innovation and entrepreneurs, but I just don't see it in action. Awareness and promise are a good start, we need to see them follow through with this.

With any luck we might get people on this task force that actually understand this issue that seems to elude so many. IP rights are a tricky issue because they not only cost the businesses, but they cost the consumers as well. Capitalist systems work best when they focus on the consumer and what benefits him/her. Also, encouraging and sustaining competition is good too. There's a silly myth going around that having a natural monopoly is a good thing...it's not. Competition forces a company to diversify, research, innovate and basically do the things it needs to work in the long run.

I'd be interested in how that 3Billion/2007 figure was collected and researched. My guess is that it's probably a little off, or at least misleading without more of the surrounding data. And if I were heading up this task force I would disallow the movie/music execs to chip in until they show an understanding of the issue and better practices with regards to it. They have mostly been metaphorically shooting themselves in the face since the turn of the millennium.

Gonna have to keep an eye on that. Hopefully it's gonna protect the conceptionalist too.

I understand why they would take the time to build a specialized IP task force, but specifically saying that it will benefit the consumers with "lower cost, high-quality and more diverse title offerings that are made possible by strong measures protecting the creative works of our industry’s artists" is a little inane. The best selling games are nothing original, and the original games just don't sell well. Gaming piracy isn't nearly as rampant as music and movie piracy. The problems aren't with the pirates, they're with the legitimate consumers who just don't want to play anything but Modern Warfare 2.

In my opinion, the IP task force is a sensible decision, but the ESA becoming an outspoken proponent of it was unnecessary.

Given the fact that I see most of the teenaged kids I deal with have a hazy, fuzzy understanding of Intellectual property as something that even can be stolen, I would imagine developers would be best served by a government task force that focuses itself on education. The latest episode of my podcast (http://www.happygamefamily.com) seems to indicate that kids are developing with no understanding how stealing software can harm anyone at all.

Then again, given that the U.S. Government just got done spending nearly thirty years lathering the airwaves with anti-drug messages, to absolutely no discernable effect, maybe it's better if they just keep their collective mouths shut.

AS a creator of copyrighted works, I applaud any effort to protect my works from piracy while I hold the copyright. But as a consumer, I fear any further efforts to destroy my fair use rights. I also fear any further efforts to brand the paying consumer as a criminal.

I really hope that this Task Force is not just another puppet of the media conglomerates but is a true open government agency that will have the best interests of not only copyright owners but also copyright consumers at heart.

I completely disagree with this... IP isn't what is being stolen! I don't see people downloading Call of Duty to say they created it! I am pretty certain they download it to play! I do think IP should be protected, but not at the cost of being able to modify something. If you wish to alter the content and redistribute your changes, you should be able to. If you want to distribute the original content with your changes in it, that is a different story.

Wow. A lot of ignorance about fundamental IP issues by some of these comment-writers.

Hmmm, the government forms a "task force" to enforce the laws already on the books? That doesn't sound all that ground-breaking. More like common sense.

Hopefully this will extend past our shores as the real issue with piracy is all the smaller countries, some where MOST software being used is pirated.