http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0...9654%2C00.html
Upload a File, Go to Prison
A new bill proposed in Congress on Wednesday would land a person in prison for five years and impose a fine of $250,000 for uploading a single file to a peer-to-peer network.
The bill was introduced by Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and Howard Berman (D-Calif.). They said the bill is designed to increase domestic and international enforcement of copyright laws
More specifically, the bill targets peer-to-peer file trading, an aide working for the congressmen said. The law is meant to keep up with changing technology.
Content like movies, music and software are the country's No. 1 export, but the creators are being hurt by people who use technology to get the content for free, Conyers said.
Jason Schultz, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, called the bill "a sign of desperation" by the recording industry and Hollywood as they try to hold on to their business models.
The bill, called the Author, Consumer and Computer Owner Protection and Security Act of 2003, or ACCOPS, would allocate more money to the justice department to investigate copyright crimes: up to $15 million a year, compared with the current budget of $10 million. The bill would also enable information sharing between countries to help in copyright enforcement abroad.
The bill "clarifies" that uploading a single file of copyright content qualifies as a felony. Penalties for such an offense include up to five years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine. In addition, filming a movie in a theater without authorization would immediately qualify as a federal offense.
"We're giving notice that this is something we want specific attention paid to," said the aide. "The current law is very general."
ACCOPS also mandates that file-sharing websites must get consent from consumers to search their computers for content or to store files. In addition, those who provide false information when registering a domain name could also be charged with a federal offense.
Last year, Rep. Berman introduced a bill that would protect copyright holders from liability if they impaired or disrupted the unauthorized distribution of their content on P2P networks. The bill is still being debated.
EFF's Schultz said ACCOPS shows that the recording and movie industries "don't care what kinds of collateral damage they create." Sufficient laws are in place to punish those who violate copyright law, he said.
Plus, the poorly written bill sets up an unnecessarily wide dragnet, Schultz said. It criminalizes the placement of any copyright work on a computer network.
"If you have a file stored on your computer and your computer is connected to a publicly available network, you may not even know that you are committing a felony, but this law could put you in jail," he said.
"There have been hearings, year in and year out, and consumers have not complained about anything that is going on in this bill," Schultz said. "The only people complaining are the content industry folks.
"The content industry is asking the public to fund this kind of an effort against themselves."
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Unbelievable!
Marius