Congress readies broad new digital copyright bill
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.
First they started suing everyone, now they (RIAA / MPAA) are saying that even fair use, like making copies for personal use like a copy of a DVD to an ipod, is illegal now in their minds. So now they are working on making illegal “the means”. So if I have a torent program (I have used it to distribute a video game mod, download a software update, download indie music and a few movie archives from Video Shoutcasts and other large file situations) or DVD Extractor (How else am I going to get Band of Brothers onto my ipod?)
Tags: Interesting, Legal, p2p, Sharing
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