State Department concocting “fake” intellectual property “Twitter feud”

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The US State Department wants to team up with other government agencies and Hollywood in a bid to create a "fake Twitter feud" about the importance of intellectual property rights. As part of this charade, the State Department's Bureau of Economic Affairs says it has been seeking the participation of the US Office of Intellectual Property Enforcement, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, the US Patent and Trademark Office, and "others."

To make the propaganda plot seem more legitimate, the State Department is trying to enlist Stanford Law School and "similar academic institutions" to play along on the @StateDept feed on Twitter.

"We're not going to participate," Mark Lemley, the director of the Stanford Program in Law, Science, and Technology at Stanford Law School, told Ars in an e-mail. He recently received an e-mail (PDF) and a telephone call from the State Department seeking his assistance.

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