dean_martin
10-07-2004, 02:17 PM
what do you think? Here's an article from USAToday:
Freeze! Drop the song! File-swappers targeted
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
Song-swappers beware: Lawmakers appear determined to put a serious dent in online file-sharing.
Responding to the pleas of the recording industry — which says music sales are still flagging despite a recent uptick — politicians in both houses of Congress have passed a multitude of bills aimed at protecting copyright owners.
In the last few weeks, bills have passed muster in the House or the Senate that would:
• Make it a punishable offense to share a substantial amount of songs online, with a prison term of three to six years.
• Enable the Department of Justice to go after file-swappers with civil copyright cases. Now, Justice can file criminal copyright complaints, but they are difficult to prove.
The "Pirate" bill would give it the authority to pursue civil cases against swappers for damages.
• Help protect unreleased movies or music from getting posted online before their official release.
The "Art" bill would institute fines and prison time for doing so.
Because the various bills are similar in intent, and passed in either the House or the Senate, they are expected to be morphed into one master bill after the congressional recess.
About 60 million Internet users in the USA are believed to frequent file-sharing services.
There's been no outcry yet about the potential for prison time for heavy users, "because no one can believe these bills are actually real," says Jason Schultz, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation advocacy group.
"Our jails are overcrowded, the police are overworked, and we're going to have to make room in the prisons for teenage file-sharers? If that really happens, people will be outraged."
The new legislation is expected to include the remnants of the most controversial of the bills: the so-called Induce bill, which is scheduled to be voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee today.
The Induce bill would make it easier for the recording industry to file civil lawsuits against file-sharing companies.
The bill is supported by some political heavy-hitters, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
Critics include the consumer electronics industry and many tech firms, including Intel, Google, Yahoo and CNet. They charge that Induce is overly broad.
It targets file-sharing companies such as Kazaa and Grokster. But it could also include firms that make devices that can copy media, such as a personal computer or iPod digital media player, as entities that "induce" people to infringe copyrights.
Negotiators have been trying to work out a compromise draft before today's vote. But those talks broke off Wednesday, "with no consensus," says Gigi Sohn, president of the advocacy group Public Knowledge, which has been lobbying against Induce. "The new draft is worse than the old one."
Getting tougher
Induce and the other proposals are in part a response to a recent court loss by the industry. A federal appeals court in August upheld an earlier decision that the file-sharing companies Grokster, Morpheus and Kazaa weren't responsible for copyright infringement — their users were.
Recording Industry Association of America Chairman Mitch Bainwol says he's convinced the parties can come to terms on Induce, despite the heated opposition. "What everyone [in the content-creation industry] agrees on is that the Kazaas of the world have to be held responsible," Bainwol says.
The RIAA, after years of trying to combat unauthorized file-sharing with education campaigns, ramped up its efforts at enforcement in September 2003 by suing file-sharers, citing copyright infringement.
More than 5,000 people have been sued so far. Most cases have been settled, at fees ranging from $2,000 to $15,000.
The lawsuits have helped create greater public awareness of the issue, Bainwol says. The RIAA blames file-sharing on a three-year, 31% drop in music sales. But the outlook has begun to improve slightly. U.S. music sales for the first six months of 2004 are up 5% over 2003, at $5 billion, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
Current copyright law has provisions for the government to go after serious infringers with criminal lawsuits. The "Piracy Deterrence" bill from Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, would update it for the digital age by putting a specific figure on the infringement: 1,000 songs, worth $2,500 of losses to the copyright owner.
New York copyright attorney Whitney Broussard says the net effect of Smith's bill, should it be signed into law, would be more bad publicity for the RIAA. When the lawsuits began, one of the first people targeted was a then-12-year-old New York honors student, who was sued for sharing 1,000 songs. "I don't see how that helps the RIAA's cause," Broussard says.
Bainwol says anyone who posts 1,000 songs or more online isn't a casual user. "These are serious infringers."
Freeze! Drop the song! File-swappers targeted
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
Song-swappers beware: Lawmakers appear determined to put a serious dent in online file-sharing.
Responding to the pleas of the recording industry — which says music sales are still flagging despite a recent uptick — politicians in both houses of Congress have passed a multitude of bills aimed at protecting copyright owners.
In the last few weeks, bills have passed muster in the House or the Senate that would:
• Make it a punishable offense to share a substantial amount of songs online, with a prison term of three to six years.
• Enable the Department of Justice to go after file-swappers with civil copyright cases. Now, Justice can file criminal copyright complaints, but they are difficult to prove.
The "Pirate" bill would give it the authority to pursue civil cases against swappers for damages.
• Help protect unreleased movies or music from getting posted online before their official release.
The "Art" bill would institute fines and prison time for doing so.
Because the various bills are similar in intent, and passed in either the House or the Senate, they are expected to be morphed into one master bill after the congressional recess.
About 60 million Internet users in the USA are believed to frequent file-sharing services.
There's been no outcry yet about the potential for prison time for heavy users, "because no one can believe these bills are actually real," says Jason Schultz, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation advocacy group.
"Our jails are overcrowded, the police are overworked, and we're going to have to make room in the prisons for teenage file-sharers? If that really happens, people will be outraged."
The new legislation is expected to include the remnants of the most controversial of the bills: the so-called Induce bill, which is scheduled to be voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee today.
The Induce bill would make it easier for the recording industry to file civil lawsuits against file-sharing companies.
The bill is supported by some political heavy-hitters, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
Critics include the consumer electronics industry and many tech firms, including Intel, Google, Yahoo and CNet. They charge that Induce is overly broad.
It targets file-sharing companies such as Kazaa and Grokster. But it could also include firms that make devices that can copy media, such as a personal computer or iPod digital media player, as entities that "induce" people to infringe copyrights.
Negotiators have been trying to work out a compromise draft before today's vote. But those talks broke off Wednesday, "with no consensus," says Gigi Sohn, president of the advocacy group Public Knowledge, which has been lobbying against Induce. "The new draft is worse than the old one."
Getting tougher
Induce and the other proposals are in part a response to a recent court loss by the industry. A federal appeals court in August upheld an earlier decision that the file-sharing companies Grokster, Morpheus and Kazaa weren't responsible for copyright infringement — their users were.
Recording Industry Association of America Chairman Mitch Bainwol says he's convinced the parties can come to terms on Induce, despite the heated opposition. "What everyone [in the content-creation industry] agrees on is that the Kazaas of the world have to be held responsible," Bainwol says.
The RIAA, after years of trying to combat unauthorized file-sharing with education campaigns, ramped up its efforts at enforcement in September 2003 by suing file-sharers, citing copyright infringement.
More than 5,000 people have been sued so far. Most cases have been settled, at fees ranging from $2,000 to $15,000.
The lawsuits have helped create greater public awareness of the issue, Bainwol says. The RIAA blames file-sharing on a three-year, 31% drop in music sales. But the outlook has begun to improve slightly. U.S. music sales for the first six months of 2004 are up 5% over 2003, at $5 billion, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
Current copyright law has provisions for the government to go after serious infringers with criminal lawsuits. The "Piracy Deterrence" bill from Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, would update it for the digital age by putting a specific figure on the infringement: 1,000 songs, worth $2,500 of losses to the copyright owner.
New York copyright attorney Whitney Broussard says the net effect of Smith's bill, should it be signed into law, would be more bad publicity for the RIAA. When the lawsuits began, one of the first people targeted was a then-12-year-old New York honors student, who was sued for sharing 1,000 songs. "I don't see how that helps the RIAA's cause," Broussard says.
Bainwol says anyone who posts 1,000 songs or more online isn't a casual user. "These are serious infringers."