DOJ to prosecute file swappers

ASPEN, Colo.--The U.S. Department of Justice is prepared to begin prosecuting peer-to-peer pirates, a top government official said on Tuesday.

John Malcolm, a deputy assistant attorney general, said Americans should realize that swapping illicit copies of music and movies is a criminal offense that can result in lengthy prison terms.

"A lot of people think these activities are legal, and they think they ought to be legal," Malcolm told an audience at the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s annual technology and politics summit.

Malcolm said the Internet has become "the world's largest copy machine" and that criminal prosecutions of copyright offenders are now necessary to preserve the viability of America's content industries. "There does have to be some kind of a public message that stealing is stealing is stealing," said Malcolm, who oversees the arm of the Justice Department that prosecutes copyright and computer crime cases.

In an interview, Malcolm would not say when prosecutions would begin. The response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks temporarily diverted the department's resources and prevented its attorneys from focusing on this earlier, he said.

A few weeks ago, some of the most senior members of Congress pressured the Justice Department to invoke a little-known law, the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act, against peer-to-peer users who swap files without permission.

Under the NET Act, signed by President Clinton in 1997, it is a federal crime to share copies of copyrighted products such as software, movies or music with anyone, even friends or family members, if the value of the work exceeds $1,000. Violations are punishable by one year in prison, or if the value tops $2,500, "not more than five years" in prison.

Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), said his industry would "welcome" prosecutions that send a message to song-swappers.

"Some prosecutions that make that clear could be very helpful...I think they would think twice if they thought there was a risk of criminal prosecution," said Sherman, who was on the same conference panel.

Christopher Cookson, executive vice president of Warner Bros. and another panelist, said there was "a need for governments to step in and maintain order in society."

Swapping files in violation of the law has always been a civil offense, and the RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have the option of suing individual infringers and seeking damages.

But, Malcolm said, criminal prosecutions can be much more effective in intimidating file-swappers who have little assets at risk in a civil suit. "Civil remedies are not adequate...Law enforcement in that regard does have several advantages," Malcolm said. "We have the advantage, when appropriate, of opening up and conducting multi-jurisdictional and international investigations.

"Most parents would be horrified if they walked into a child's room and found 100 stolen CDs...However, these same parents think nothing of having their children spend time online downloading hundreds of songs without paying a dime."

Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association, said he was skeptical about the view that peer-to-peer piracy should be a criminal offense. "If we have 70 million people in the United States who are breaking the law, we have a big issue."

The DOJ already has used the NET Act to imprison noncommercial software pirates, which software lobbyists hailed as "an important component of the overall effort to prevent software theft."

During his confirmation hearing in June 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft told Congress that "given the fact that much of America's strength in the world economy is a result of our being the developer and promoter of most of the valuable software, we cannot allow the assets that are held electronically to be pirated or infringed. And so we will make a priority of cybercrime issues."

The letter from Congress complains of "a staggering increase in the amount of intellectual property pirated over the Internet through peer-to-peer systems." Signed by 19 members of Congress, including Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Ca., the letter urged Ashcroft "to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks."

It's against the law, but hey, everyone's doing it and there's not much anyone can do to stop it, and the majority feels justified, so it must be OK. Does that pretty much sum it up?

No, it doen't sum it up. The nude rule was a law that was passed democratically, (what you refer to as mob rule).

Slavery was legal once.

So was copywight laws.

Are you comfortable with all laws passed?

Do you think that because a majority votes for something, it is always right?

I didn't think so.

They will have to go to every junior high, high school, and college campus and round up about 3/4 of the students if they really want to take care of this problem.

They can never take care of crime in that way ultimately. The only way immorality will recede is if the society in which it resides rejects it.

The parents of these young miscreants are morally confused so the children will also be. Sadly.

"First of all, record retailers have a pretty big profit margin compared to other industries. Secondly, you think distributors have no power to negotiate the wholesale price of CDs? ... Walmart practically demands record labels sell to them at a wholesale price just pennies above cost. " [I edited out the snide, arrogant comments] That's the first response w/ real information. Yes, you are right about Walmart. But it's Walmarts power that allows it to get those concessions. Walmart and Target practically own the red states. I'll take your word on the profit margins of record companies.

Whereas, if I make the MP3 myself, that's OK, that's fair use.
Make it? Make it how? If you mean copy copywrited property, it's not.

Nonsense. If I purchase a CD, digitally rip it to my computer's hard drive, convert it to an MP3 file, and copy the MP3 file to a portable MP3 player, every step of the process is fair use regardless of the copyright status of the music on the CD.

Making the MP3 available for download by anyone who might want it, however, would not be legitimate.

The efforts by the industry to place technological roadblocks in the way of the fair use example described above (among others), and their purchase of laws to make it illegal to circumvent these roadblocks, have quite understandably forfeited the sympathies of people who would normally support them in protecting their rights.

Bootlegging is wrong, but unless and until the industry shifts to a stance of using only legitimate means to oppose it then I'll reserve my moral indignation for more worthy causes.

So doesn't that mean you're the one in lockstep with the Dem mindset?

If the Democrats happen to be on the right side of this issue, then so be it. My point was that the populist tone among most of the posts here mirrors the victim-of-expolitation rhetoric from Democrats that makes me cringe.

As for your contention that few people are downloading MP3 files for personal use, and not selling them for profit: Please tell me your source for that particular data.

First, let's clear up your misconception. I didn't contend that most people were selling copied music. I know of instances where it happens, but most people are trading them online in exchange for other people's copied MP3s. And if you need any evidence of how widespread that activity is, just log on to one of the PTP sites.

But the labels and its industry umbrellas (and not a few artists) should also understand that they're being perceived as heavy-handed thugs.

Sure, there are a lot of petulant freeloaders who feel they're entitled to the fruits of someone else's labor at no charge. Of course they're going to be upset when someone should insist that, God forbid, they be compelled to actually pay for something they use.

I'll believe it when I see it...
I have a feeling this is just some propaganda shoveled out by the Justice Department to appease the recording industry.

Oh they may shut down a couple people running servers with 20,000 songs on them as an example. There is no way they would risk the political fallout of mass arrests of teenagers and college age kids. Remember we live in the society were the "children" can do no wrong.

This may not be all about music. I've used a few of the P2P services, mostly looking for stuff that is is so old that it is no longer available for sale, not even on eBay.

Mixed in among all those .mp3s are countless zipped files which contain large application software packages. Want WinXP? No problem. AutoCAD 2002? It's there. Every Norton utility program ever conceived? Easy as pie, just click "download". That only scratches the surface... there are "cracks" and keynumber generators and computer games galore - the sheer number of file transfers must be making the phone lines heat up.

There's another little problem... lots of this stuff is hosted outside of the U.S. Even if they clamp down on the largest offenders *here*, the stuff will still be out there, somewhere. Software audits will will keep the bootlegged stuff out of the workplace, so it is the personal user they intend to target.

Whether we're talking about a teen-aged girl playing her N'SYNC .mp3s or some middle-aged guy playing a rousing game of Ghost Recon, they'll have to go door-to-door to find the offenders. How secure is *your* firewall? Or your front door, for that matter?

I never meant to dispute this. I thought the context of my comments should have been sufficent to allay that misconception. I will take responsibility for poor communication skills on my part.

The context was that the person copied it for the purpose of swapping it. Which, of course, is the same as selling it. Value for value.

You both are right about copywright violations in the absolute sense. But you know what? It's irrelevant. The vast majority of the music listening public hates the record labels guts, and I bet the laws will change in the future. The record labels dug their own graves with years and years of deplorable business practices. I do not feel sorry for them one bit. I don't feel sorry for the whining boys at Metallica complaining how some kid isn't paying full price for their "music".

tdadams: If you have friends who still work for record companies, urge them to adapt. Urge them provide the service consumers want: inexpensive, convenient downloads.

Do you think that because a majority votes for something, it is always right?

No, and that's exactly why I don't think that just because the majority wants to download music without paying it, that makes it right.

I think there are plenty of illegitimate laws. I don't happen to believe property rights are illegitimate.

I took two courses on economics, but the teacher was so boring I slept through both of them. The guy stood six inches off the window and mumbled at it.

I understand that record companies are charging the max that the market will bear, and I'm sure my arguing sort of got away from me.

I also know that the problem that record companies have w/ PTP is it's volume. It's perfectly legal to make copies of music/video so long as you don't distribute it for profit or charge for viewing. Copying cassettes was a time-consuming process. Digital music take seconds to download.

I really wish that record labels would use this PTP mess to look at their own practices and see how they can improve the way they sell their products. If record companies provided a good product (no filler songs) at a fair price, there wouldn't be MILLIONS of people using PTP.

The vast majority of the music listening public hates the record labels guts, and I bet the laws will change in the future.

So, you're a technological revolutionary fighting to empower the masses. Please. You're rationalizing is nauseating. It's the very same demogoguing that Democrats use against Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Fast Food, or Big ______ (fill in the blank).

Fair enough, and I have no problem with bringing civil lawsuits against people who redistribute copyrighted materials without permission. (As I noted above, I would limit the matter to civil law in order to insure that penalties are kept in reasonable proportion to the offenses, and to prevent the copyright law from being abused in the manner that has become common in the post-DMCA environment.)

The basic problem is that the laws the industry has bought and intends to buy in the future indicate that their agenda is not the legitimate suppression of bootlegging, but the illegitimate establishment of a de facto publishing monopoly. To take the most egregious example, the Hollings bill would require that all digital devices adhere to a centralized security standard, thus making it impossible for media devices to play back any material that had not been certified under the standard. This would have the effect of requiring all publishers to obtain a license from the industry owners of the standard.

But you know what? It's irrelevant. The vast majority of the music listening public hates the record labels guts, and I bet the laws will change in the future.

Right and wrong are never irrelevant. Rights need to be defended, even if the people who's rights are being violated are not popular. I have no interest in the music component of this story. I have no interest in the companies from a personal standpoint.

If you substitute the Drug companies for the record companies and fail to protect the intellectual property of those inventing life saving medications, none will get invented. That is the point, property rights are essential to liberty.

Explain one thing to me. Why is it that "Joe Blow" can record a song and the rights to that song can be held near indefinitely while the guy who invented "Velcro" loses his rights to that within a limited time span?

I file share all the time, I've downloaded numerous mp3's that I used to have on vinyl or cassette. I also download mp3's that I think I might like and quite often I go buy the CD because of it.

If the RIAA would get their head out of their collective tails and embrace this technology instead of fighting it, they would find that they would be much better off. I've said all along that Sony, (or whoever), should set up a file server with their entire music album on it and provide it for download at a cost per album and per song. They should also provide JPEG's of the CD artwork and liner. If they did this I'd never have need of a PTP program again.

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