Making The Justice Dept. A Copyright Busybody

poptones writes "The Senate Judiciary committee has just approved four new bills relating to IP law in the U.S. A couple of them provide some much needed reforms for the patent process including raising fees, raising fees more for those who most use the system, and providing discounts for small entities (who'da thunk?)" According to poptones, "Unfortunately, all is not good" -- read on below to see how the RIAA and MPAA stand to gain from one of these bills in particular.

This bill, put forward by your friends and mine, Msrs. Leahy and Hatch, would task the JD with filing civil actions against "pirates" - essentially putting your tax dollars to work bringing civil actions against college students in the name of the very largest Copyright holders, allowing them even more spare pocket change to spend lobbying to restrict your already shrinking online freedoms. A choice snippet from the floor: "For too long, Federal prosecutors have been hindered in their pursuit of pirates, by the fact that they were limited to bringing criminal charges with high burdens of proof..."

And it gets better: "In the long run, I believe that we must find better mechanisms to ensure that our most vulnerable citizens--our children--are not being constantly tempted to infringe the copyrights that have made America a world leader in the production of creative works." Hold on to your wallets folks, they're telling us to "think of the children" again..."

Comments

Re:Let the endless arguement begin. Good vs Evil

[josh3736]

For the last time:

IT IS NOT *THEFT*!!!

It is copyright infringement. Plain and simple. I have not walked into the studio and taken the physical property of the artist. Still think its theft? Dictionary.com:

To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief.

Copyright infringement doesn't meet all of those conditions. When I download something, I have not removed "every part of the property" -- you still have your copy, and so does the artist, the studio, etc.

So please, stop spreading the propoganda. It's not theft.

Re:Wait a minute....

[turnstyle]

It's kinda funny -- when the RIAA wants a tax to pay off the RIAA, it's a BAD thing. When the EFF wants a tax to pay off the RIAA, it's a GOOD thing.

Re:wouldn't that benefit the GPL?

[Bob9113]

I think this could be indeed a useful law in the future, if used by us GPL lovers. What do you think?

First a clarification: This potential law is about civil law enforcement by the government.

And for the opinion, since you asked: The government should never under any circumstances take a side in a civil dispute. The entire concept of the distinction between civil and criminal disputes is that in civil law, person A is 51% right and person B is 49% right, and noone knows before the end of the case which side is which. This is referred to as "preponderance of evidence". Given that, which side should the government be backing in a given civil dispute? Neither.

Criminal law is the sole domain of government law enforcement.

Senator Leahy's words on this

[wytcld]

Dear Mr. [me]:

Thank you for contacting me about intellectual property protections. Although we disagree on this issue, it is good to
hear from you.

Throughout my career, I have been concerned about the theft of intellectual property and the effect it has on
innovation. Protection of digital content is just one aspect of this effort. On March 23, 2004, the Senate Judiciary
Committee held a hearing on physical piracy, entitled "Counterfeiting and Theft of Tangible Intellectual Property:
Challenges and Solutions," at which the Committee examined the harmful effects of stealing another's creation.
Reasonable estimates show that the U.S. economy loses between $200 billion and $250 billion annually to piracy and
counterfeiting. At that hearing the Committee heard from a representative of Burton Snowboards, which employs 350
people in Vermont. That witness reported that knock-off Burton products have been found in multiple countries, and
fake goods often turn up on internet auction sites.

The improper use of Burton's trademarks is illegal, it is unethical, and it robs the company of revenues it should
rightfully reap but that others siphon off. In the 104th Congress, I introduced the Anticounterfeiting Consumer
Protection Act of 1995, which gave law enforcement additional tools to fight counterfeiting and which became a public
law. I am currently looking at additional legislation that would help hard working Vermonters protect the goods they
produce.

Likewise, downloading music without paying for it, and without the copyright holder's permission prevents artists,
authors, musicians - and those that work behind the scenes to produce creative content - from realizing the benefits
they deserve.. In order for the promise of new technologies to be fully realized, high quality digital content needs
to be easy to use and portable, and I am glad to see that several companies are now offering legal alternatives that
are meeting with success. This is a development I continue to encourage.

While illegally downloading music is wrong, I do not think that handcuffs for copyright infringers should be the
government's only option. That is why, on March 25, 2004, I introduced the "Protecting Intellectual Rights Against
Theft and Expropriation (PIRATE) Act." I do not believe in a "one size fits all" system of justice, and the PIRATE Act
will provide needed flexibility by allowing the Justice Department to pursue civil penalties for copyright infringement
when criminal penalties are not appropriate.

Thank you again for contacting me about this important issue, and please keep in touch.

Patrick Leahy
United States Senator

http://leahy.senate.gov /

Since counterfeit snowboards seemed totally off the wall to me, here was my reply:

Dear Senator Leahy:

Thank you for your response. It does not, however, show consideration of
many of the most pressing issues in "intellectual property." Please detail
what you are doing to:

- Roll back copyright terms to the reasonable period envisioned by the
writers of the Constitution

- Allow Web "radio" to have the same rights to broadcast music as
over-the-air stations, without the additional fees for using the music
which are currently assessed, which only serve to enforce the broadcast
monopolies while restricting artist access to the public

- Preserve the "fair use" rights that have long been in copyright law
against the large corporations working to remove or negate them through
using encryption technologies

- Undo the chilling effects of the DCMA on free technological development,
where it prevents normal testing and reverse-engineering of encryption
schemes

- Restore restrictions on the number of radio or television stations that
may be owned by any single corporation (surely you are aware of the
political disaster that results f