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Alternatives To The INDUCE Act

Posted by timothy on from the seduce-has-a-nice-ring-to-it dept.

The Importance of writes "The INDUCE Act, which has been discussed many times previously, will likely be getting a lot more attention thanks to the recent Grokster decision. The Register of Copyrights, who thinks the Betamax decision should be overturned, is supposed to come up with a consensus fix to the current language of the bill by Sept. 7. So, various people are proposing alternative solutions to the INDUCE Act. C|Net reports on one coalition's version [PDF] [HTML]. However, there are also versions by Prof. Tim Wu [PDF] [HTML], IEEE-USA [PDF] [HTML] and Ernie Miller [HTML]." Read more below about the proposed "Don't Induce" act.

Iphtashu Fitz writes "The 'Don't Induce Act' proposes that only someone who distributes a commercial computer program that is 'specifically designed' for wide-scale piracy on digital networks could be held liable for copyright violations. The proposal includes three requirements that must be met before a software distributor can be found liable: The 'predominant' use of the program must be the mass, indiscriminate infringing redistribution of copyrighted works; the 'commercial viability of the computer program' must depend on revenue derived from piracy; and the software distributor must have 'undertaken conscious, recurring, persistent and deliberate acts' to encourage copyright infringement. No surprise that the MPAA and RIAA are opposed to this 'watered down' bill. MPAA vice president Fritz Attaway showed his organizations true colors by stating that the Don't Induce Act was so narrowly drafted it would be impossible to use it to shutter even operators of peer-to-peer networks."

1 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Call me crazy but... by rhsanborn · · Score: 0, Redundant

    ...if someone could prove all the provisions of the 'Don't Induce Act' they wouldn't need the don't induce act to at least sue, if not prosecute. So we add even more legislation to an over legislated society. There is a reason there are so many lawyers. Its because there are too many people in Washington who insist on making their mark and keep passing more and more bills in stead of revising, and deleting the old crap thats been lying around.