(originally uploaded by lounger)
Senate Bill Would Empower DOJ to File Civil P2P Lawsuits
A bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday would give the Justice Department the power to pursue civil copyright enforcement actions against individuals who use file-sharing networks. The Intellectual Property Enforcement Act was introduced by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and committee member Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
The bill would authorize additional funding to investigate and prosecute intellectual property crimes involving computers and the Internet, and allocate additional funds to the FBI to assign more agents to work on intellectual property crimes; it would also classify both the importation and exportation of pirated works as infringement.
“Copyright infringement silently drains America’s economy and undermines the talent, creativity and initiative that are a great source of strength to our nation,” Sen. Leahy said in a statement.
Similar legislation (also called the “Pirate Act”) has previously cleared the Senate three times, CNET News.com reported, despite contentions from civil liberties advocates and others that the legislation would essentially have the government filing the lawsuits currently being pursued by corporate copyright interests like the Recording Industry Association of America.
“I applaud Senators Leahy and Cornyn’s leadership in working to ensure that adequate resources are available to enforce our nation’s intellectual property laws,” said Motion Picture Association of America chairman and CEO Dan Glickman.
I think I’ve officially seen it all, now.
The head of the MPAA — an outfit whose primary role is to censure artistic vision in order to “protect” the average American — applauds two Senators for pushing legislation through Congress to allocate money straight out of our pockets to police and prosecute his industry’s headaches?
Mr. Glickman, let me be the first to applaud you. Seriously. Way to teach the kids about how capitalism works. At least they’ll have that life lesson in tow as they forgo college to pay into perpetuity for downloading a copy of Rocky IV.
The only good this will do is reinforce the notion that we all need to become greater creators of culture, while only consuming independent goods.
That’s my silver-lining and I’m sticking to it.
UPDATE: Apparently, on the very same day the above legislation was introduced, the Democrats pushed through another bill to extend the Higher Education Act of 1965.
ZDNET
Democrats: Colleges must police copyright, or else
The U.S. House of Representatives bill (PDF), which was introduced late Friday by top Democratic politicians, could give the movie and music industries a new revenue stream by pressuring schools into signing up for monthly subscription services such as Ruckus and Napster. Ruckus is advertising-supported, and Napster charges a monthly fee per student.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) applauded the proposal, which is embedded in a 747-page spending and financial aid bill. “We very much support the language in the bill, which requires universities to provide evidence that they have a plan for implementing a technology to address illegal file sharing,” said Angela Martinez, a spokeswoman for the MPAA.
According to the bill, if universities did not agree to test “technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity,” all of their students — even ones who don’t own a computer — would lose federal financial aid.
Pulling financial aid from students without computers? Man, that’s low.
“Such an extraordinarily inappropriate and punitive outcome would result in all students on that campus losing their federal financial aid–including Pell grants and student loans that are essential to their ability to attend college, advance their education, and acquire the skills necessary to compete in the 21st-century economy,” a letter from university officials to Congress written on Wednesday said. “Lower-income students, those most in need of federal financial aid, would be harmed most under the entertainment industry’s proposal.”
Check out this move by the lobbyists for the MPAA and RIAA:
The old language over the summer required schools to develop “a plan for implementing a technology-based deterrent to prevent the illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property.” The new language requires “a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.”
In other words, if universities pay large, lump sums for providing campus-wide subscription services for their students to download music and film legally, then the federal government won’t be forced to turn off financial aid.
Of course the cost of these subscriptions will be pushed onto the incoming class of 2010 and beyond in the form of an extra bump to the traditional yearly tuition increase that occurs each year across our land in these fine institutions.
What a racket. Organized crime isn’t this fucking organized.
UPDATE II At least I’m not alone out here:
