RIAA, MPAA resume lobbying push to expand copyright law
It only took a few days after politicians returned from their summer holidays for Hollywood and the major record labels to resume their legislative push to rewrite and expand digital copyright law.
The Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America are lobbying for a pair of bills that enjoy bipartisan support. Both are designed to give the federal government more power to police copyright violations, and both are likely to run into opposition from political foes of the RIAA and MPAA.
On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the so-called Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act, a 46-page bill that was introduced in July by Vermont's Patrick Leahy and Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, the committee's top Democrat and Republican.
The measure represents a fusion of previous bills, including ones that have enjoyed support in both the Senate and House of Representatives, and one that Leahy introduced in November 2007. One of the more controversial sections of the latest version would permit the Justice Department to file a civil lawsuit against "any person" committing a copyright violation--which would include thousands, or perhaps millions, of piratical peer-to-peer users.
A group of librarians and nonprofit groups, including the American Library Association, Public Knowledge, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, sent a letter to senators on Wednesday that says copyright holders--and not government lawyers funded by tax dollars--should be the ones filing the lawsuits.
"Movie and television producers, software publishers, music publishers, and print publishers all have their own enforcement programs," the letter says. "There is absolutely no reason for the federal government to assume this private enforcement role." (The letter also criticizes the bill's criminal and civil forfeiture sections, and impounding of business records pre-trial if someone is accused of copyright infringement.)
The second RIAA- and MPAA-backed bill was introduced by senators Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, and Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, on Wednesday. It's called the International Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement Act, and it aims to ratchet up copyright pressure against countries that the U.S. Trade Representative deems to be taking too few steps against piracy.
"We can't let other countries repeatedly rip off the movies Americans make, the products Americans design and the other fruits of American ingenuity without taking some action," Baucus said in a statement.
The Baucus-Hatch bill says that the executive branch "shall develop an action plan" against such nations, with benchmarks including "adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights." Failure to meet those benchmarks may result in the Feds suspending government procurement contracts involving that nation, and halting loans and development aid, including credit from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
Another section says the president "shall ensure that an intellectual property attache with the title of Minister-Counselor is placed in the United States embassy of each foreign country with which the President determines the United States has a commercially significant relationship."
The RIAA applauded the bill in a statement, saying it will "protect this national resource with new, meaningful tools." The MPAA's Dan Glickman said: "We appreciate the leadership of Chairman Baucus and Senator Hatch. Their efforts to strengthen the enforcement of U.S. intellectual property rights around the world are critical to protecting the many American business sectors and American workers that depend on intellectual property."
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan. 
Any why should they? The republicans and democrats are both in corporations pockets, and they somehow convinced the public that voting for anyone else is throwing away your vote.
Easy solution: lower the freaking prices on movies, music and games, so that the people who want to buy them CAN buy them. In the long run, I am 100% sure that the cartels would make more money back than they were making at the higher prices.
This is just another example of corporations using the government to do their bidding against the people who elected them to serve.
That's right folks you just keep voting those extreme liberals into office and sit back and watch your rights as an American slowly fade into the past. It just amazes me how many of you just lie down and take this continuing building of bigger government to further control your lives. At least it is not on my conscience to leave this mess to our children, I tried to vote them out of office. But each of you who continue to support this and other increases in government control of your lives, step back and look what you are doing to your children and your children's children. And you say you love them. Ha!
The more the US government tries to enforce laws by adding more to the mountain already in place in America, the more "criminalized" we become as it's citizens and the less say we have in our own government. Over time, the government itself will be reduced to the lackeys of corporations rather than the representatives of the people for which it stands.
Kid Rock did a you tube video I saw yesterday saying those whop steal music might as well steal i-Pods , stereos, and Toyotas too. Those businesses have plenty of money adn they won't feel the loss of shrink of a few bucks.
Digetari have a demented mindset and value of what is property and hat is not.
Just because they get free information from the internet, they believe music, movies, books, and games should all be "free"... Pity those fools. I guess they are communists.
If you are going to come up with an analogy for your wrongheaded view, at least find one that doesn't make you sound like a blubbering idiot.
It has always been the copyrights holders responsibility to enforce their copyright.
This government we have today is out of control, and in more ways than just one. But the brunt of piling more government on the backs of the people is mostly the fault and principal of the democrat liberals.
Hmmm...a global library where I can rip my cd's and DVD's and you can check them out and watch or listen to them. And then if I want to I can reserve or pull my media back out of the global library.
That would be legal wouldn't it?
"Slapping teenagers with no cash on the wrist is just stupid." Why? Last I checked, telling people they shouldn't steal was considered a good thing, even a top-ten item. Stealing from a library is still just that.
This is all about trying to enjoy other's work without having to pay. Why should I work for you for no pay? If you were the one working, you wouldn't like it...
Although piracy is wrong it is not stealing. Your 7-11 example is idiotic. When you steal, whoever you stole from no longer has that item. For example if you steal a donut from 7-11, that 7-11 will be short one donut. In the case of online piracy a copy is made, so if you pirate a song, the music industry still has the song and so do you. Stop perpetuating false statements!
And lay off the "music industry" bogeyman. When you steal, you are stealing from individual people, sometimes many great and small, sometimes only just one. If you tried to run out the door from that one, and you got caught, what would happen? So quit pretending it's OK because there's an "industry" or two out there.
Make copyright 7 years, non-renewable, and I will respect the law.
Current copyright law is stealing our cultural heritage from all of us!!
Die MPAA!! Die RIAA. Abolish copyrights and patents. Let the corporate vampires leech from us no more.
I do though believe in the right of fair use. Not so much for movies but for music. I should have the right to copy and mix albums for my own private use without exclusion. Companies/Artists put ot a album of lets say eight songs, of which maybe only one song is good, so in essence I am buyin seven songs that I dont like.
Artists and the companies that produce them have a right to make a profit, its called enterprise, capitalism to name a few. Would anyone go to work at a company and not desire to be paid for their work. I do not think so.
Too, the government should not be the police agency for the RIAA or MPAA, Copyright infringement suits should be filed as any other grievence, by the offended party.
Maybe if a crime is committed by someone who is inspired by a particular song/album/movie the government can then file suit against the offending industry, sounds fair to me.
But we are a people of freedom, You want to raise the brows of the industry, Dont buy their products for a month or two. You might get their attention.
- by The_Decider September 11, 2008 5:37 PM PDT
- @contentcreater
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (34 Comments)Seriously, go educate yourself on the difference between theft and copyright infringement.