Legislators are now wrangling with the issue of budget requests for IP enforcement. I've written before about how much of the IP debate today boils down to enforcement--its collapse in the wake of digital worldwide everything. So a legislative focus on enforcement is for once at least addressing the disease rather than symptoms...

But it will be very easy here to start throwing money down a black hole. GAO has criticized the current programs for coordinating IP enforcement--NIPLECC and STOP-- as lacking leadership and meaningful baselines.

There is an awful lot of enforcement to be done out there--worldwide--and the current efforts are a drop in the bucket. But state-sponsored processes are not terribly efficient--as compared to civil enforcement, preventative business plans and technologies, and so on. Several observations would help to guide budgetary allocations going forward:

-Over the next 15 years, the United States should have the goal of moving away from playing international IP police; rather, the plan should be to help other countries design institutions that work locally as these developing economies will have their own reasons to quell piracy.

-Civil enforcement has been the main thing for IP enforcement, and this should continue. But government will continue to have a role in enforcement where piracy is linked with criminal ventures. Effectiveness in this area should be a focus of long-term efforts.

-Federal monies should go to programs that have well-developed and meaningful measures of success. Note: counting prosecutions and noting their increase is not a measure of success, in the absence of analysis of such things as deterrence and the number of prosecutions that are *not* brought.