Posted on 08/21/2002 10:34:16 AM PDT by Leroy S. Mort
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."
(Welcome to the sub-basement levels of flame wars.)
(Seperately that the Constitution's allowance for grants of copyrights has been exceeded beyond the pale. And that copyrights are temporary grants -- that "We the People" orignate and make to claimants, for limited times and purposes far more circumscribed than you seem to believe.)
You would think they would take better care to protect their property then.
BTW. $5 million to market a "new artist"? I suppose with all of the cross ownership these days, the record companies have learned accounting from 'Laundrywood' where even "blockbusters" never seem to make any money.
I'll ask you again, what should the labels do to "protect their property" that they're not already doing? You don't think they'd jump for joy if they could stop illegal copying. It's just plain stupid to assert that there's some technology out there that would stop illegal copying but the industry simply can't be bothered to implement it.
They're trying to stop copying by the best means availavle, the law. But thieving whiners (of which you may be one) insist that "music should be free" and all sorts of imbecilic drivel to justify theft.
You seem to think the labels are welcome to stop copying as long as they do it in a way that meets your approval. Well, the law is on their side and if it takes enforcing the law in criminal courts, so be it. I'm sure you won't like that and you'll call them nasty names, but so what. They're right and you're wrong. I'll take a little verbal abuse as long as I know I'm right.
All the protestations here only prove that I am.
If you've got some great idea that will stop illegal downloading, there could be a lot of money in it for you.
Let's see if you're up for the challenge.
2. Encript the software so it can not be copied by any teen with a CD burner. If someone wants "Fair Use" make them ask for it like the law says and attack the companies that will sell hacker packages to bust your code. Change your code often.
3. Forget about turning the FBI into your own private security guards chasing teen age music freaks. They have more important things to worry about.
You are part of a ten billion dollar industry. Spend your own money to protect your property if your loses are so damn horrific. I'm sure Wall Mart loses more every year but I don't see them asking the feds to patrol their stores.
Trust me. The only music I listen to is by some old dead white men. You sure as hell don't need to worry about me stealing something by one of your $5 million dollar marketing creations.
LOL!
Ditto, Ditto. I haven't bought a "pop" recording for ages and am not likely to, either. Not my cup o' tea.
A folksinger of the '60s whose LPs my roommate used to play until I had to leave the room, Janis Ian, has a different perspective on downloading MP3s: they bring more business.
After suffering through too many hours of her "singing" I'm not about to jump at the opportunity for a free sample, but do applaud her for defying the RIAA establishment for suggesting that it's the performers who gain the most (especially has-beens whose works are no longer in print) from music downloads.
If you believe what Janis Ian says in her article, though, most of the royalties stay with the recording companies unless you have a "Platinum-Plus" hit. Accounting practices are on a level with the movie studios.
In other words, fraudulent.
Is this an honest question or are you being disingenuous like so many others on this thread.
I don't know why copyright law is so hard to understand. If GM sells you a Corvette, does that convey a license to you to manufacture Corvettes? Is there a limit on how many Corvettes GM can sell (other than production limitations)?
Selling a product is not the same as selling the patent/copyright interest in that product. Most people here are confused by a simple lack of knowledge about business law.
The artists received not one cent of the money from the MP3.Com settlements of approx $158 Million to the labels. Who did??? The label themselves.
Why didn't the artists get any of this money? It sounds like the RIAA are doing the stealing.
The "patent/copyright" concept was created in order to help someone maintain proprietorship of an item even after he's sold it.
You can as easily maintain that when I purchase a CD, I am purchasing a recording of one particular performance of that artist's work, and that he is free to re-record that performance over and over, creating a new marketable product.
The reason WHY the industry is so hot-to-trot on file-sharing, is that they supposedly lose the potential for the sale of a new unit with each download.
When I sell my old Supra, Toyota loses the potential sale of a new unit.
That's the argument the recording industry is making.
They are simply lazy, and greedy.
When I downloaded songs, they were recordings that I couldn't find elsewhere, in a lot of instances, they were out-of-print. I used a file sharing system because it was convenient, fast, and available to me 24/7. Asides from that, I don't have to buy ten other recordings that I am not interested in to do that.
The recording industry is trying desperately to hold back the tide of evolution, they will not address an obvious need of their customer base, they are trying to use the law to stiffle innovation in their industry, even if it means throwing customers in jail.
Let me give you an example of something.
I just bought a CD from Amazon.com, $13.19 plus shipping for 11 songs. That's about $1.23/ per song, plus shipping and handling. It's a new artist, and I want to listen to the CD to see what I think. No problem there. I also ordered a new copy of "Hotel California" to replace my old one. No problem there either.
Now, I've been looking for recordings of "Morning Girl" by The Neon Philharmonic and "In A Broken Dream" by Python Lee Jackson for almost ten years now without any success. I found them both in a matter of seconds on the web.
The recording industry wasn't interested in selling me either of those recordings, but now, they want to prosecute me for getting a copy from the net?
Not only that, but I recall a few years ago, Frank Zappa, John Denver and others, testifying before Congress on the issue of government censorship of the recording industry. They stood on the First Amendment to do that. Now, they are advocating what constitutes illegal search and seizure to protect their interests.
What a bunch of friggin' hypocrites.
That's my problem with this whole thing.
They need to get off their fat, stoned asses, and address this obvious need of their customers.
However, this tax was never implemented because DAT manufacturers agreed instead to change the digital sampling rate from 44.1 Khz (that of CDs) to 48.0 (DAT) which made a direct digital to digital copy impossible. In addition, that tax provision has never applied to blank CDs.
The CD writer tax you're referring to is not in the U.S. and not at the behest of the RIAA. A German court last year ruled that Hewlett Packard must pay a fee to artist's organizations to compensate for losses. The case has been appealed and is likely never to prevail.
I appreciate your asking instead of presuming.
Yeah, that's practical isn't it? You gonna foot the bill for the artist to re-record it solely for you? You're wanting to rewrite the law for your own convenience. Sorry, but the law is written already and there's nothing wrong with it as is.
Not exactly a good analogy. That analogy is more like people buying and selling at a used CD store, which is legal.
A truer analogy would be if people were going onto the Toyata car lot and stealing cars, while the populist masses demand that they keep making new Toyata cars available to steal.
Ten years? Be honest... how hard were you really looking? I found Morning Girl and In a Broken Dream in a matter of minutes.
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