'Pirate Act' Would Shift Copyright Civil Suits To DoJ

mammothboy writes "News.com.com has a story about the new so-called Pirate Act, which seeks to allow federal prosecuters to file civil suits against file swappers. These lawsuits can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars, and if you guessed that the RIAA is lobbying for it, you're right. What's scary is how fast and how quiet its march through the legislative process has been. In '97, the No Electronic Theft Act allowed for criminal lawsuits, but none have been filed, so isn't it clear that the Justice Department has better stuff to deal with?" There actually have been some prosecutions filed under the NET Act, but not many. Update: 05/26 18:51 GMT by T : Declan McCullagh (author of the linked News.com story) writes to clarify: "FYI there have been prosecutions under the NET Act, as you say. But there have not been any of P2P users. That's why the Senate is doing this."

Comments

Best Governement $$ can buy!

[Newer Guy]

Yep...that's what we have.. and will continue to have until people exercise their responsibility and vote all the scoundrels out!

Re:burden of proof differs...

[Cerv]

"The burden of proof" refers to which party - defence or prosecution - has the burden of proving their case. Funny that. Perhaps you meant the standard of proof.

Re:Double fucked...

[Lord Kano]

From the 5th Amendment.

" nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb;"

Your money is neither your life nor your limb. Like it or not Double Jeopardy is only for criminal prosecution.

LK

Virginia Slashdotters...

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

...be sure to drop a note to Rep. Rick Boucher! He has consistently been one of the few (and by few, I mean only) politicians who isn't totally in the pocket of the RIAA and their ilk. (cough cough... Orrin Hatch... cough cough) He recognizes the rights of copyright holders to make a fair buck off their work, but he also draws a damned firm line on the rights of citizens to control the things they've paid for. And if you're not in Virginia, he'll still listen to your opinions. It's about time we started paying attention to the pols who *haven't* been bought and paid for yet.

http://www.house.gov/boucher/

(Having been raised Mormon, I also have a lot of other reasons to bitch about Hatch, but I'll save that for later. That whole state is run by asshats.)

Figures it involved Orrin Hatch

[Stargoat]

It figures that Orrin Hatch is one of the sponsers. The Republican from Utah has been doing this stuff for years now. The guy thinks he is a musician, and is worried that pirating music could hurt other musicians. Last year, Orrin Hatch was the jackass who advocated developing technology to destroy the computers of people who download music. It was one of Hatch's staffer's who broke into a democrat's computer and read his docs. Hatch himself was found to have pirated some software a while back as well to host his website.

Hatch's boy is one of the lawyers for the SCO. No surprise there. Daddy's just trying to make the laws for his baby boy to enforce.

Call your senators (you have two) and tell them to oppose this bill. If you don't know who they are, go here to find out.

Re:Figures it involved Orrin Hatch

[srleffler]

Call your senators (you have two) and tell them to oppose this bill.

Better still, write to your senators (on paper) and tell them to oppose this bill, and why. Politicians place greater emphasis on number of letters received from their constituents than they do on number of phone calls or emails.

Re:My business plan

[el_gordo101]

1. Convince all the software manufacturers in the country that they need someone to manage their industry.

We already have the BSA to take care of this...

And so we move to anonymous networks... eg.FreeNet

[ControlFreal]

And there we go again... Apart from the fact that I find the influence that big industries have on the justice system in the US nauseating, the music industry seems to think that it can "stop" swapping in any way. This is typical black and white thinking

What is actually happening here is that the "system" (in this case the swappers and the music industry together) shift to a new equilibrium location, where the trade-off between speed and ease-of-use on the one hand, and speed on the other hand, is optimal for the given situation on the legal battle-field.

First we had Napster: very easy to use, but having the flaw of a single point of failure. Then we had the FastTrack and Gnutella networks (think KaZaa and LimeWire here): good bandwidth, but no anonymity at all, but at least without the need for a single point of failure. Then came eDonkey and his friends: less bandwidth, more obfuscation. A step further along the line lies FreeNet: anonimity beyond reasonable doubt, but a slow network and it's hard to find things. In the future, the balance might shift even further to the side of obfuscation, encryption and low bandwidth.

Now before you start yelling: "But FreeNet doesn't work!". Think again: Since about mid-May, it works well again! Try it!

So: go to their website and download that client! Happy browsing!

Not quite.

[aidoneus]

What you're thinking of is trademark, not copyright. Since the mid-1970s (in the US) copyright has existed for a creative work from the moment of its creation. No assertation is necessary nor is any registration (although registration may help in any legal conflicts).

So no, copyrights do not need to be asserted for infringement to occur.

-jason

Re:Not quite.

[Nixoloco]

I don't think he is suggesting that the copyright beomes invalid if not enforced. He is just stating that the copyright holder has to be a party to its enforcement in order to support charges of infringement.

He is just making a very good point, that this is just to get the DoJ to pay for the RIAA's legal bills. The DoJ will just be able to bring charges on behalf of the RIAA (copyright holders).

How exactly does this benefit taxpayers?

Re:Not quite.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're misunderstanding what LostCluster meant by "Copyrights have to be asserted". He wasn't saying that the copyright holder needs to assert that they hold the copyright, but that the holder would need to say that the copying goes against their wishes and they want to prosecute.

Would it make sense for the DOJ to jump in and arrest your mom for making a copy of a snapshot you took when you don't care one way or the other? There would be no doubt that you own the copyright, but you probably wouldn't want to prosecute dear old mom for the offense.

Re:Crowded Courts

[base_chakra]

Why make more work for the courts/government?

This might have something to do with it (quoted from the news.com article): "The Justice Department would receive an extra $2 million for the fiscal year beginning in October."

Re:burden of proof differs...

[praksys]

Under current law there is no need to show damages in a copyright infringement suit. Copyright owners are automatically entitled to "statutory" damages if they can prove infringement.

Take a look here.

There is a great deal of "wiggle room" with respect to what the court "considers just," and in 1999, Congress increased the amounts. In cases in which the plaintiff cannot prove that the infringement was "willful," the Copyright Act allows a sum of "not less than $750 or more than $30,000" per infringement. However, if the court finds that the defendant's behavior was "willful," the court has discretion "to increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000" per infringement.

So that is a minimum of $750 for every instance of infringment, even if it was not willful (i.e. even if you did not realise that you were infringing). That should give you some idea of why the people getting sued by the RIAA are all caving so easily. Even at $750 per mp3 (if they are lucky) the statutory damages can add up real fast.

Isn't this a good thing?

[infiniti99]

I remember back when the file sharing networks were being attacked by the RIAA, it was common for people to post here and say that the programs and networks are just tools that can be used for good or evil. Thus, the networks are innocent and the RIAA should really be going after the actual traders. Well, now they are. So what's all this fuss about?

Re:American Whoredom - False Assumptions

[JBMcB]

False Assumptions:

1. Republicans are for less government.
Regan authorized spending on an A$$LOAD of money in the 80's. Remember, Congress spends money, the President just authorizes it. Heck, just about every Republican president in the last 30 years spent more money than the last.

2. Democrats are for corporate responsibility
Except for those companies who pay their bills. The Pirate Act is sponsored by Patrick Leahy (D. VT)

It's simple, if you want less government control:
http://www.lp.org/

If you want more,
http://www.gp.org/
http://sp-usa.org/
(To ns more. Lots of people like government regulation it seems. Sigh.)

Re:American Whoredom

[Lochin Rabbar]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but according to conservatives isnt the 'invisible hand' of competition supposed to be a self-regulating force that works best without government intervention?

No that's liberalism a philosophy that seemed radical in the eighteenth century and so was mindlessly opposed by the conservatives of the period. Now in the early twentyfirst century such nonsense is just tired old dogma and part of the dominant ideology which means it is fervently and mindlessly promoted by the conservatives of today.

Re:American Whoredom - False Assumptions

[espo812]

Remember, Congress spends money, the President just authorizes it.

Uh, no. Congress appropriates money. The President (really the executive branch) spends it. In fact, the Supreme Court has said the President must spend it (as opposed to impounding funds for programs the given President doesn't like.)

Re:DMCA them

[OldMiner]

Call me a fool for responding here. Maybe you were intending to be silly, and the people who modded you up as Funny saw it right. But, let's be clear: this is a terrible idea.

Even if the network were broken into, the DMCA covers copyright law which is a civil matter. You acknolwedge this by saying 'sue' them. But then you would invite criminal charges being filed against you under the aforementioned NET act. You sue them, they charge you. And, once more, the original copyright owners also still have the right to seek civil action against you. What do you think the odds are a plea agreement might compel you to desist from any lawsuits?

If one were to try to make an example in this fashion, he may well find himself made an example of.

As always, IANAL.

Re:your tax dollars at work...

[Simonetta]

Wanna send the RIAA a message? Pick a day, buy a bunch of new albums, and on the next day return them unopened and in resalable condition.

My understanding of the music biz is that in this type of situation, the retail price of the albums that are returned will be subtracted from the artist's royalities. So the only person receiveing a message are the musicians, who are learning that they should have never entered this line of work in the first place.

You didn't seriously expect that the music industry would not have figured out a way to charge the musicians for EVERYTHING that would be a cost for the record companies, did you?

The music industry is obsessed with the idea that they have the most desired product in the world (with the exception of refined opiates) and that everybody will do everything they can to get everything that they release. Therefore they must go to insane lengths to keep their product away from people except in small, measured, and expensive doses.

To a large extent this is the truth, but it is becoming less so every year. Eventually, the music industry will reach the point where they realise that their extended efforts to prevent people's access to their product has resulted in a significant decline in the demand for their product. Threaten enough people with prison, asset confiscation, and criminal records for using your product and people will stop using your product, regardless of the price that you charge for it. Tastes can change. The music industry may find out that the obsession with possessing pre-recorded music on disks might be a characteristic only found in western baby-boomers. When they pass from the scene, so may their industry.

I read that the music industry sales have fallen from 36 billion US dollars to 24 billion US in three years. That figure puts the entire business at less than South Korean prostitution (according to Asia Times -www.atimes.com) and almost as big as the toilet paper business. What other business this size gets special laws passed to put their customers in prison over pricing disagreements?

Re:And so we move to anonymous networks... eg.Free

[Anonymous Coward]

Your entire post is just chock full of wierd assumptions and inaccuracies.

1. There's plenty of stuff on Freenet besides "child pornography and software piracy". Mmmmkaaaay, maybe if you look for something else besides the above two items, you might find something else. Surprise!

2. Believing in the reasonably free flow of information AND personal privacy are NOT mutually exclusive. Idiot.

3. "In addition stop collecting a paycheck since..." Okay, I just stopped reading at this point because you're coming off like a whiny flake with an axe to grind...

ahh /me calls bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not support Freenet because I don't support child pornography and software piracy

Um, last time *I* looked at freenet, there was much more political blogs than kiddie porn or warez. Makes me wonder what you were looking for if that is all you found...

Re:your tax dollars at work...

[Jon Erikson]

It certainly isn't in the UK. Allowing returns without any fault is purely a courtesy the shops extend to you.