Congress readies broad new digital copyright bill

For the last few years, a coalition of technology companies, academics and computer programmers has been trying to persuade Congress to scale back the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Now Congress is preparing to do precisely the opposite. A proposed copyright law seen by CNET News.com would expand the DMCA's restrictions on software that can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers.

The draft legislation, created by the Bush administration and backed by Rep. Lamar Smith, already enjoys the support of large copyright holders such as the Recording Industry Association of America. Smith, a Texas Republican, is the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees intellectual-property law.

A spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee said Friday that the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 is expected to "be introduced in the near future." Beth Frigola, Smith's press secretary, added Monday that Wisconsin Republican F. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the full House Judiciary Committee, will be leading the effort.

"The bill as a whole does a lot of good things," said Keith Kupferschmid, vice president for intellectual property and enforcement at the Software and Information Industry Association in Washington, D.C. "It gives the (Justice Department) the ability to do things to combat IP crime that they now can't presently do."

During a speech in November, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales endorsed the idea and said at the time that he would send Congress draft legislation. Such changes are necessary because new technology is "encouraging large-scale criminal enterprises to get involved in intellectual-property theft," Gonzales said, adding that proceeds from the illicit businesses are used, "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities."

The 24-page bill is a far-reaching medley of different proposals cobbled together. One would, for instance, create a new federal crime of just trying to commit copyright infringement. Such willful attempts at piracy, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison.

It also represents a political setback for critics of expanding copyright law, who have been backing federal legislation that veers in the opposite direction and permits bypassing copy protection for "fair use" purposes. That bill--introduced in 2002 by Rep. Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat--has been bottled up in a subcommittee ever since.

A DMCA dispute
But one of the more controversial sections may be the changes to the DMCA. Under current law, Section 1201 of the law generally prohibits distributing or trafficking in any software or hardware that can be used to bypass copy-protection devices. (That section already has been used against a Princeton computer science professor, Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov and a toner cartridge remanufacturer.)

Smith's measure would expand those civil and criminal restrictions. Instead of merely targeting distribution, the new language says nobody may "make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess" such anticircumvention tools if they may be redistributed to someone else.

"It's one degree more likely that mere communication about the means of accomplishing a hack would be subject to penalties," said Peter Jaszi, who teaches copyright law at American University and is critical of attempts to expand it.

Even the current wording of the DMCA has alarmed security researchers. Ed Felten, the Princeton professor, told the Copyright Office last month that he and a colleague were the first to uncover the so-called "rootkit" on some Sony BMG Music Entertainment CDs--but delayed publishing their findings for fear of being sued under the DMCA. A report prepared by critics of the DMCA says it quashes free speech and chokes innovation.

The SIIA's Kupferschmid, though, downplayed concerns about the expansion of the DMCA. "We really see this provision as far as any changes to the DMCA go as merely a housekeeping provision, not really a substantive change whatsoever," he said. "They're really to just make the definition of trafficking consistent throughout the DMCA and other provisions within copyright law uniform."

The SIIA's board of directors includes Symantec, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Intuit and Red Hat.

Jessica Litman, who teaches copyright law at Wayne State University, views the DMCA expansion as more than just a minor change. "If Sony had decided to stand on its rights and either McAfee or Norton Antivirus had tried to remove the rootkit from my hard drive, we'd all be violating this expanded definition," Litman said.

The proposed law scheduled to be introduced by Rep. Smith also does the following:

• Permits wiretaps in investigations of copyright crimes, trade secret theft and economic espionage. It would establish a new copyright unit inside the FBI and budgets $20 million on topics including creating "advanced tools of forensic science to investigate" copyright crimes.

• Amends existing law to permit criminal enforcement of copyright violations even if the work was not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.

• Boosts criminal penalties for copyright infringement originally created by the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 from five years to 10 years (and 10 years to 20 years for subsequent offenses). The NET Act targets noncommercial piracy including posting copyrighted photos, videos or news articles on a Web site if the value exceeds $1,000.

• Creates civil asset forfeiture penalties for anything used in copyright piracy. Computers or other equipment seized must be "destroyed" or otherwise disposed of, for instance at a government auction. Criminal asset forfeiture will be done following the rules established by federal drug laws.

• Says copyright holders can impound "records documenting the manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in" infringements.

Jason Schultz, a staff attorney at the digital-rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the recording industry would be delighted to have the right to impound records. In a piracy lawsuit, "they want server logs," Schultz said. "They want to know every single person who's ever downloaded (certain files)--their IP addresses, everything."

CNET News.com's Anne Broache contributed to this report.

[David Turner]

Here we go again

Just when you think they can't take this kind of thing any further

[Zupek]

Its the GOVERMENT trying to brainwash america

They do it every day. Trying to convince us this war is about Terror, when its ALL ABOUT OIL.

Plain and simple..its reach people trying to get richer, by taking money from the poor people and the people that are capabaly of seeing past the crap the goverment wants the people of what used to be a great country, to believe.

I dont steal from the poor to better myself...thats why i am democrat. I hate H.Clinton and have no want what so ever to give all my money away to deadbeats. So dont even bother coming back with that crap. come up with a better defense. I want what is best for the people and Republicans ARENT IT

[poster48150]

Typo on story

"The draft legislation, created by the Bush administration and backed by Rep. Lamar Smith, already enjoys the support of large copyright holders such as the Recording Industry Association of America."

There's an extra "r" in the second word of that sentence.

Jim

[Gerald Quaglia]

Toolbox (NT)

.

[PJDJ]

Wow - This is garbage

What is with this government? They always use the same two tired excuses to pass any bill they want. Terrorism and child pornography. They can pass any sort of spying law as long as they say it's to combat one of those fields. Funny, they never provide solid evidence or examples of how these bills would allow them to hinder either of them. It's basically just like an automatic excuse. "Um, yeah, we're going to do more illegal wiretapping because, uh, yeah terrorists.", so then people say "Okay!" Honestly, who wants go to up against an excuse of terrorism or child pornography? "I don't want to be a terrorist, so I won?t say anything." That's why the government chooses those lame excuses to fatten their pockets and restrict our rights even more every single time and IT KEEPS WORKING. Well I say screw that! We all need to stand up and say: this is trash and not allow this crap to get passed. Remember, the government works for us, we don't work for the government and protecting the interests of the few is not the way things should be done.

Just my two cents :-D

[vchmielewski]

I agree

I'll we writing my congressmen expressing my concerns about this
proposed bill. Everyone should do the same.

[krushyou]

This IS garbage

yes, the gov't is doing this to protect us from the terrorists and child pornography...right...the gov't cannot even stop child pornography in their own organization and now they need to branch out to us? Apparently thats how things get done in the gov't now... "We need to make gasoline $3 a gallon because the terrorists and the child pornographers need to be stopped!" "By raising the prices of gasoline we will stop the pornographers from driving their cars as well as the terrorists because they will be too poor to get to their destination!" so the gov't sees this as rational and a bill becomes approved...brilliant! so thats how gov't works timmy...

[booboo1243]

RIGHT ON

you are Right
they are Wrong
F. the lies
I want proof
People need to stand up and DEMAND PROOF before these kinds
of things are allowed. "Oh, we can't because the terrorists will
(whatever)" BS! If there's so many terrorists all around, why
don't we hear about them?
There's still a lot of time left in the Bush term, so we need to
protect our rights by questioning every new legislation that
takes away any rights. Demand proof of why the "new
protections" are needed.

[lotw_1]

That is lame

That is a lame idea. Where is the consumer protection. We have rights too, not just the money stealing music industry. What good are MP3 and other players if we cannot use them with the music Cds we buy. Time to vote all current Congress members out of office if that even gets one vote cause they took money to pass it.

[DJ-Panic]

No bill# ?

"A proposed copyright law seen by CNET News.com "

This part makes think this article isn't exactly on solid ground.

The EFF has no info about this new bill on their site, and there is no bill # in the article to lookup for more information about it.

How can you write to your senator's about something if you don't even have the Bill # to reference?

I say shenanagins and FUD until something more concrete is given here.

[declan00]

There's no bill number because it hasn't been introduced yet...

Dear DJ:

You make multiple false assumptions. First, you assume that draft legislation that has not been introduced yet has a bill number (it doesn't). Second, you assume that something isn't real unless it appears on EFF's web site (also untrue, and silly to boot). The article quoted EFF's position on this, anyway, so that should be good enough for you. Third, you didn't read the article closely enough to realize that Gonzales has been talking about this for a while:
http://news.com.com/Justice+Dept.+pushes+stiffer+antipiracy+laws/2100-1028_3-5944612.html

[stmon99]

Congress serves Mammon

Congress is controlled by monied interests. It always has been. So when industry lobbying groups come knockin', Congress bends over and says, "Give it to me! We'll do anything you want!"

[msiskin]

Copyright on viruses

Would this law make anti-virus activity illegal? I can just see it
now. Symantec in court defending it's reverse engineering of the
latest virus against the DMCA.

:-)

[hadaso]

Only if the virus writer is filthy rich ...

... like Sony.

[publius1]

Unconstitutional

"The draft legislation, created by the Bush administration [http://...|http://...]"

According to the Constitution of the United States, the executive
branch of the United States government cannot introduce bills in
congress. If the excerp quoted above is correct, then this situation
can be compared to the 2000 elections, when the judiciary branch
overstepped its Constitutional rights and decided the outcome of
the Presidential race.

[nickymccloud]

*snrk*

Welcome to America, land of the Republicans.

Excuse me, I need to catch a flight to Canada.

[Don_Dodge]

The president writes it, the congressman introduces it

You are of course correct that the president can not introduce legislation. Careful reading of the C/Net story says the legislations was "drafted" by the administration, but will be "introduced" by congressman Smith. The story was correct.

This happens all the time. Congressmen of the incumbent presidents party always introduce legislation on behalf of their president.

Congratulations to Declan McCullagh on a well written, thought provoking, article. Great reporting!

[john55440]

GOP - Lap Dog of Big Business

With the Republican Party controlling The Presidency, Congress, and The Supreme Court, whatever big business wants, big business gets. The fundemental philosophy of the Republican party is "screw the consumer".

[converter42]

Democrats are saints?

If you think the Democrat Party are any different then you're being suckered. Washington D.C. is one big Good Cop/Bad Cop game. The only solution is to clean house...vote them all out and fire the unelected bureaucrats at all the bogus government agencies who use our money to maintain their gravy train no matter who's in power. Of course this will never happen, because the vast majority are comfortable with a false dichotomy.

[ncgmcpherson]

What year are you living in? Last time I looked, the Democrats control both the house and senate. When it comes to corporate pacs, there are lap dogs on both sides of the aisle.

[GoHack1]

Will Microsoft have to follow the new laws?

Will Microsoft have to follow the new laws? After all, they've either bought, copied, reversed engineered, and drove out of business other companies and their products.

Examples: DOS, they bought that, and for peanuts. Windows, they copied both Apple and Xerox on that. The Windows layout was never copyrighted. Stacker, a disk compression program, they copied that, lost when sued, and then bought them out. The BEOS operating system, they drove them out of business, was sued and lost in court, and had to pay millions.

Microsoft has an on staff collection of lawyers. I'm sure they still research the copyrights and patents on products, then weigh in the costs of either buying, copying, or the penelties when sued, or if the company, whose product(s) they've copied, would, or even could sue them in court.

I don't know of anything that Microsoft came up with, from scratch. It's always been someone else's ideas that Microsoft built upon, which they've been very successful at.

[freemarket--2008]

Microsoft?

This has little to do with Microsoft. But I don't disagree with your other points.

We have seen how the government (mis)handled dealing with Microsoft's misbehavior, so the only viable solution is a general boycott of their products. Spread the word!

[Xalorous]

tired of ms bashing

It's not that I disagree. But you made the point that Microsoft has been sued and lost over copyright issues. Thus they have not been held exempt from copyright laws. No reason to think they will be in the future.

As to the string of infringement you have alleged, the more fitting accusation is monopolistic and anticompetitive practices.

[damienlittre]

When will they get it?

When will politicians finally understand that copyright infringment shouldn't even BE a criminal offence. In my opinion, it should be, just like patent disputes, a matter of civil law, not criminal. If I decide to download a pirate copy of my favorite game/O.S./movie/ whatever, society as a whole is not wronged or at risk.
The only people who "lose" money here are the movie company or the software publisher.
Therefore, I fail to understand why congress is ready to even consider passing a bill that would put people in jail for 10 years just because of copyright infringement (hey, that's more than what some felons who committed assault get).

[nickymccloud]

Haha, you must be kidding...

They'll "get it" when they stop lining their pockets. The only reason the government is getting in on this is because if it were a civil matter, the government wouldn't get money from the entertainment industry to protect their creations.

[laurapwriter]

bad reasoning

Stop using convoluted reasoning to justify your behavior. Under that type of reasoning, burglary wouldn't be considered a criminal offense since society at large isn't at risk. After all, if a burglar steals your TV, stereo and computer, you're the only one who's lost money, right? Heck, that could be an economic boon, a benefit to society because you'd have to go out and buy replacements, right?

When are people going to get it? Theft is theft. Doesn't matter whether you appropriate your neighbor's car, a stranger's TV, or intellectual property. Taking it without payment or permission is stealing.

[A.Sinic]

Society not at risk?

"If I decide to download a pirate copy of my favorite game/O.S./movie/ whatever, society as a whole is not wronged or at risk."

Sorry, I have to take issue with that. A culture of piracy is a culture that kills creativity. How many new creative ideas do you see coming out of China these days? Not many considering the size, education, and technical expertise of the Chinese population.

It's like bootleg liquor. Taking a drink didn't impact society, but the organised crime that sprang up to supply those drinks was a catastrophy.

Who is going to sit down and write a novel, let alone make a movie, if they are never going to get paid for doing it? Unless you want such people retained by the state like the "People's Artists" of the Soviet Union, you need some sort of copyright enforcement. Leaving it to civil law means letting the fat cats win every time. A law that isn't enforced is a waste of time.

[Mystigo]

Those naughty terrists are gonna get us

>Gonzales said, adding that proceeds from the illicit businesses
>are used, "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities.

Oh really. Had to throw the old "but what about the terrists?" in
there. These SOBs will use that card to justify anything. He
forgot to mention the overwhelming role that $73 per barrel oil
plays in funding the terrists. He is either the most ignorant man
alive (were talking Lois Lane ignorant here) or an evil
Machiavellian liar. Either way, there is no excuse to have
someone like him as the US attorney general.

Vote Democrat in November.

[lorcro2000]

What - they couldn't mention kiddie porn too?

I was surprised that nobody managed to sow more fear by claiming feral gangs of kiddie porn producing copyright violators were gearing up to Steal Your Children. Still, they managed to squeeze terrorism in there, at least one hot button to push to make it easy to say "people who are against this love terrorism!"

Hell, a handbasket and the USA sure seem to have a lot in common these days.

[MythicalMe]

RIP USA

Benjamin Franklin said it true that "those willing to trade security for freedom deserve neither." Our once great democracy has been compromised by fear mongering in Washington. I can no longer walk the streets or conduct my own business without fear of someone watching my every move all in the name of security. Terrorism has won. Fear reigns supreme. The once great bastion of freedom and democracy is no more.

Congress and the Bush administration keep trampling our rights because they are despots. They are ****** that depend upon the likes of the entertainment industry to keep their pockets lined. The citizenry has no say in a government that refuses to listen. Democracy, in that case, is dead.

[hadaso]

10 years in prison. for violating the GPL ...

Violation of the GPL or other open source or Creative Commons license is copyright infringement like any other kind of copyright infringement. If what's wtitten in the article is true even an attempt to violate the GPL would be punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

If 'copyright holders can impound "records documenting the manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in" infringements' then the FSF would be able to do it with records related in violations of the GPL, including the source code of closed source applications suspected in violationg the GPL.

It works both ways.

Now tools should be made to protect open source software from being used in ways that are inconsistent with their licenses, so that DRM software/hardware that interferes with their function would enter the legal definition of what is not allowed by the new expanded DMCA. If redistribution is interfered with in any way the permisions granted by an open source license become void, and the tool that allows copying the software in this condition is trying to bypass the limitations that were set by the copyright owner. So it seems to me that these new laws in the right circumstances would make DRM tools into copyright protection circumvention tools.

[epp_b]

Interesting...

I like your double-edged-sword thinking!

Under this expansion, First4Internet would have gone to jail and possibly SonyBMG for being co-conspirators.

[hadaso]

Migration is a solution ...

Several hundred years ago people that could not find enough freedom to excercise their beliefs have left Europe and migrated to North America were they found freedom.

Perhaps it's time for another migration...

[scottdavidlowe]

It's time...

Government is completely out of control. We have a president that consistently talks out of both sides of his smirk, that invades countries based on hopes (as in - they have WMD - yep, they sure do... I hope!) rather than evidence. Congress can't do crap anymore because the idea of a middle ground has been lost, the Supreme Court is being stacked by politicos, the executive branch and special interests are writing substantial legislation that affects EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN. The rest of the world hates our government and has no respect for the American people because we refuse to take back control of our government. Plans are underfoot to begin (or continue) jailing journalists that refuse to identify their sources when it's a government leak and then... this kind of news. We are becoming a fascist police state and we are LETTING IT HAPPEN.

Don't vote Republican this year or in 2008. Don't vote Democrat this year or in 2008.

VOTE INCUMBENTS (even the ones you like) OUT OF OFFICE. One way or another, we need change.

[gumpman155]

this new copyright bill concerns me

I think your right about what you just said. I feel like that we as americans should think about voicoting every thing. We should go back to liveing like as people did before the advint of computers and tech. that means go back to our roots. that means live as the people did in the western days. We need to leave moderen scosity. We need to just let them do what they want and be nutral as like the aumish.

[freemarket--2008]

What we really need...

is a 'None of the Above' entry on ALL ballots in this country. Eventually we might find someone who doesn't turn our stomaches to vote for.

[bigpicture]

One More Nail

This is just one more nail in the coffin of the US media and software industries. They don't know it yet but they are committing slow suicide. About 10 more years and it will be no more. No longer the world pervasive cultural influence that it once was.

Information, communication and the internet needs to be open and free, and other countries will develop a model to sustain these entertainment industries without copyright. Just one more industry that will go offshore, because it refused to adapt. (ghost town Hollywood)

[heystoopid]

Death to the Fair Use and ownership rules

Death to the fair use and ownership rules, including the rights to resell your property!

Ultimately force all consumers to upgrade to locked systems, just to view the contents, and if you sell it, the next owner has to repurchase the rights and keys for additional fees and charges, just the type of dream machines that control freaks like Howard Stringer at SONY central, will foist upon us all in the not too distant future!

Need one say more, congress weenies!, selling out our rights for one cent in the dollar, thanks guys for showing your true yellow colors to all, if you vote for this crap!

[rcrusoe]

If you don't like it, do something

A few years ago, before Comcast bought TechTV and gutted it, I
was a regular viewer of The Screensavers. It was there that I first
heard about the EFF. After quite a bit of research, I decided that
they were worth supporting and I've been a member ever since.

If you don't like what's going on, you might want to check them
out. http://www.eff.org

[SeizeCTRL]

bitter irony

For a country based in freedoms we sure do pass a lot of laws taking those same freedoms away.

[A.Sinic]

Based in freedoms?

Hmm. American talks a lot about being based on freedom, but the evidence is a little shaky.

Freedom to drive native Americans off the land which they had been legally granted in treaties with the British?

Freedom to trade and keep human slaves?

Freedom to witch-hunt people for association with possible communists?

I really love America, but if you think that Freedom has ever been the real driving force, you need to take off the rose tinted glasses. Like EVERY other country, American is founded on "What's best for us" (and usually that means best for the ruling class).

[A.Sinic]

Based in freedoms?

Hmm. American talks a lot about being based on freedom, but the evidence is a little shaky.

Freedom to drive native Americans off the land which they had been legally granted in treaties with the British?

Freedom to trade and keep human slaves?

Freedom to witch-hunt people for association with possible communists?

I really love America, but if you think that Freedom has ever been the real driving force, you need to take off the rose tinted glasses. Like EVERY other country, American is founded on "What's best for us" (and usually that means best for the ruling class).