Text 10826, 129 rader
Skriven 2006-04-23 15:29:16 av Mike '/m' (1:379/45)
Ärende: Congress readies new digital copyright bill
===================================================
From: Mike '/m' <mike@barkto.com>



===
By Declan McCullagh
http://news.com.com/Congress+readies+new+digital+copyright+bill/2100-1028_3-606
4016.html
Story last modified Sun Apr 23 06:00:06 PDT 2006


For the last few years, a coalition of technology companies, academics and
computer programmers has been trying to persuade Congress to scale back the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Now Congress is preparing to do precisely the opposite. A proposed copyright
law seen by CNET News.com would expand the DMCA's restrictions on software that
can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and
enforcement powers.

The draft legislation, created by the Bush administration and backed by Rep.
Lamar Smith, already enjoys the support of large copyright holders such as the
Recording Industry Association of America. Smith is the chairman of the U.S.
House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees intellectual-property law.

Smith's press secretary, Terry Shawn, said Friday that the Intellectual
Property Protection Act of 2006 is expected to "be introduced in the near
future."

"The bill as a whole does a lot of good things," said Keith Kupferschmid, vice
president for intellectual property and enforcement at the Software and
Information Industry Association in Washington, D.C. "It gives the (Justice
Department) the ability to do things to combat IP crime that they now can't
presently do."

During a speech in November, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales endorsed the
idea and said at the time that he would send Congress draft legislation. Such
changes are necessary because new technology is "encouraging large-scale
criminal enterprises to get involved in intellectual-property theft," Gonzales
said, adding that proceeds from the illicit businesses are used, "quite
frankly, to fund terrorism activities."

The 24-page bill is a far-reaching medley of different proposals cobbled
together. One would, for instance, create a new federal crime of just trying to
commit copyright infringement. Such willful attempts at piracy, even if they
fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison.

It also represents a political setback for critics of expanding copyright law,
who have been backing federal legislation that veers in the opposite direction
and permits bypassing copy protection for "fair use" purposes. That
bill--introduced in 2002 by Rep. Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat--has been
bottled up in a subcommittee ever since.

A DMCA dispute
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.

Jason Schultz, a staff attorney at the digital-rights group the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, says the recording industry would be delighted to have the
right to impound records. In a piracy lawsuit, "they want server logs," Schultz
said. "They want to know every single person who's ever downloaded (certain
files)--their IP addresses, everything."
===

  /m

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5
 * Origin: Barktopia BBS Site http://HarborWebs.com:8081 (1:379/45)