Copyright Office Suggests Changes To Induce Act

An anonymous reader writes "The US Copyright Office has proposed a new version of the Induce act. Under this new version it is apparently more difficult to bring charges against a company for inducement. Stories on the subject can be found at DRMBlog.com and at News.com."

Comments

HTML Text and Analysis

[The Importance of]

I've posted both the email the Copyright Office sent out and the HTML version of the "discussion draft" along with some initial analysis here: Copyright Office Produces 'Discussion Draft' Alternative to INDUCE Act (IICA). My basic take is that although this bill is an improvement, that doesn't mean much. Instead of being ludicrously overbroad, it is now only excessively overbroad.

Radical Rogue 9th Circuit Court!

[garcia]

Now groups like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and their allies in Congress are scrambling for legislation such as the Induce Act that would overturn the 9th Circuit's ruling.

Does this mean that the 9th Circuit is a radical judge making rulings based on personal opinion? I especially love the term "allies in Congress" as if this is some sort of important war.

Re:Radical Rogue 9th Circuit Court!

[dafz1]

IANAL, but I do have a degree in Poli Sci, and the INDUCE Act couldn't "overturn the 9th Circuit's ruling". The INDUCE Act will just be a not filed injunction in reality.

The Supreme Court, which has the tradition of judicial review, which allows it to overturn laws they see as unconstituional. The Betamax case, which doesn't specifically site a constitutional cause, allows use of technology in a non-infringing manner, even though the manufacturer knows it could be(gleaned from the Grokster decision). Unless the RIAA/MPAA have justices in their pocket, it's doubtful this law will be able to stand up to the Betamax standard. Then again, Orrin Hatch is chair of the Senate Judiciary committee, the first stop for federal(and Supreme) court justice appointees.

Note: I'n not volunteering to be the person to be the case that tries the INDUCE act, should this awful piece of legislation pass, against the Betamax standard.

Still is too vague

[Manip]

Scenario: If I had a CD and I lend it to my friend Fred. Now Fred wants to listen to this CD but based on this new copyright law couldn't I be inducing him to commit break copyright law because I have given him the digital media which makes it easier to copy?

Did anyone else notice how this law can be used to restrict information because you can induce someone to commit copyright infringement without providing links or files. I mean if I tell someone how to make a crack for a game by providing only locations and hex changes, I could be inducing them to break copyright couldn't I?

Artists are NOT suffering

[flinxmeister]

http://bmi.com/news/200408/20040818a.asp

"The performing rights organization generated royalties of more than $573 million for its songwriters, composers and music publishers. Royalties increased by $40 million or 7.5% from the previous year.

BMI President and CEO Frances W. Preston said both the revenues and royalty distributions were the largest in the company's history."

Sooner or later this 800 pound gorilla is going to trample their manufactured crisis.

Re:Artists are NOT suffering

[black mariah]

BMI claims to represent over 300,000 artists. Let's do some math.

$573,000,000 / 300,000 = $1910 per year

Re:It's a start...

[garcia]

but, are the people making this laws STUPID?

Greed is a powerful thing. The laws are being made by people who enjoy the perks of working for the corporations.

Dialog box loophole?

[patbob]

The draft of the act says:

".. causes the user of the technology to infringe copyrighted works without the user making a specific, informed decision, for each copyrighted work at issue, about whether to engage in such infringement; "

Doesn't this mean that all the file sharing programs have to do, is to pop up a dialog box for each file that is can't verify the user has the rights to download? Wouldn't that give the user a specific, informed decision about every file and also remove the program from inducing infringement by the terms of this draft?