New IP task force brings "stronger and stricter enforcement"

The Department of Justice has announced a new intellectual property task force that will bring together antitrust, the civil and criminal divisions, and the FBI in an effort to "confront the growing number of domestic and international intellectual property (IP) crimes."
The announcement was vague on details, but it did make three curious statements that suggest the task force wants to do more than clamp down on counterfeit pharmaceuticals and knock-off handbags. For one thing, the new task force "will also serve as an engine of policy development to address the evolving technological and legal landscape of this area of law enforcement." Secondly, the Department of Justice will "leverage existing partnerships with federal agencies and independent regulatory authorities such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Communications Commission." Finally, Justice will "develop a plan to expand civil IP enforcement efforts."
Taken separately, no statement is all that interesting; put them together, though, and it certainly sounds possible that the new task force will ponder ways to curtail Internet-based IP infringement, including "noncommercial" P2P (the music and movie businesses deny that there is such a thing; in their view, it's all commercial). Singling out the FCC as a partner agency, for instance, could mean only that the task force cares about better communications systems for law enforcement. Perhaps the task force just wants to encourage deployment of new gear in the 700MHz spectrum reserved for public safety?
On the other hand, expanding "civil enforcement" of copyright claims has long been on Big Content's wish list. The PRO-IP Act, which became law in 2008, initially directed the Department of Justice to prosecute major civil copyright cases, then turn any damage awards over the the private firms affected. That provision was stripped from the bill before passage.
The task force emphasis on "policy development" could also create pressure on the FCC to encourage "three strikes" rules by American ISPs. The possibility isn't just paranoid crazy talk; the MPAA and RIAA both explicitly asked the FCC to encourage this in recent filings on the soon-to-be-unveiled National Broadband Plan. And both groups attended a recent IP-focused meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder and Vice President Joe Biden—a meeting explicitly credited with spurring the creation of the new task force.
"The Attorney General’s announcement follows a summit meeting convened last December by Vice President Biden, a long-standing champion of US intellectual property rights-holders," said the press release.
It also follows the creation of a new White House job, the Intellectual Property Encforcement Coordinator, which was mandated by the PRO-IP Act. Between Joe Biden, IPEC Victoria Espinel, the new DoJ task force, and the secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), it's clear that intellectual property enforcement has the major backing of the Obama administration.
As Biden put it, get ready for "stronger and stricter enforcement of intellectual property rights."