Congress May Act on Internet Piracy Bill
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Congress may consider a bill that could send thousands of Internet music and movie downloaders to jail, but the legislation faces opposition from groups that say it would unfairly punish consumers. -washingtonpost.com
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Congress was pushing on Friday to finish legislation that would boost security at U.S. ports, but at the last minute lawmakers added provisions to prohibit Internet gambling.
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Despite evidence that sharing music and movies online remains popular, a report issued Tuesday by a committee of entertainment and university leaders says universities have made strides the past year to curtail online piracy.    The report, submitted to Congress by the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities, highlights steps taken by the universities to tackle Internet piracy but offers few details of their effectiveness...
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(InfoWorld) - A new bill in the U.S. Congress aimed at protecting the fair use rights for consumers of copyright material would "legalize hacking," the Recording Industry Association of America said. The Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship (FAIR USE) Act, introduced Tuesday by U.S. Representatives Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, and John Doolittle, a California Republican, would allow customers to circumvent digital copy restrictions in six limited areas when copyright owners' business models are not threatened, Boucher said in a press release. So-called fair use doctrine allows customers of copyright works to make limited numbers of copies, particularly for reviews, news reporting, teaching and research. The bill would allow exemptions to the anticircumvention restrictions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed by Congress in 1998. The bill is revamped from similar bills introduced in the last two sessions of Congress, Boucher said. "The fair use doctrine is threatened today as never before," Boucher said in a statement. "Historically, the nation's copyright laws have reflected a carefully calibrated balanced between the rights of copyright owners and the rights of the users of copyrighted material. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act dramatically tilted the copyright balance toward complete copyright protection at the expense of the public's right to fair use." But the RIAA said the bill would effectively repeal the DMCA. The bill would "allow electronics companies to induce others to break the law for their own profit," it said in a statement. Advances such digital music sales, online games, on-demand movies and e-books can be traced to DMCA protects, the RIAA said. "The difference between hacking done for non-infringing purposes and hacking done to steal is impossible to determine and enforce," the RIAA said in its statement. The Boucher bill would limit the availability of statutory damages against individuals and firms who may be found to have engaged in contributory infringement, inducement of infringement, or other indirect infringement. The bill would allow libraries to circumvent digital locks or secure copies of works that have been damaged, lost or stolen. The Consumer Electronics Association applauded the bill, saying it would give protections to consumers, educators, and libraries. Without fair use protections, consumers couldn't use devices such as VCRs and digital TV recorders, the trade group said.
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Congress moved Wednesday toward reinstating a ban on Internet access taxes, as the Senate modified a measure it had previously passed with hopes that the House of Representatives would take it up.
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Organizations and law enforcement agencies fighting spyware are making progress, but new tools in an antispyware bill stalled in the U.S. Congress could improve the efforts, a member of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Monday.One of the spyware bills passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year, the Spy Act, would give the FTC authority to impose civil fines on companies that distribute spyware to consumers&#39; computers. The bill, along with the Internet Spyware Prevention (or I-SPY) Act, have&#160;stalled in the Senate&#160;since passing the House in May and June.The FTC has the authority to collect profits from spyware operations and collect money for consumer redress, but it lacks the authority to impose other fines, as it does when going after spammers, said Commissioner Jon Leibowitz, speaking at a spyware forum in Washington, D.C.Assigning a dollar figure to consumer harm is tricky in many spyware cases, especially when the spyware delivers pop-up advertisements to computers, Leibowitz said. It&#39;s sometimes difficult to get courts to assign large consumer damages to pop-up cases, he said.In some cases, spyware damages are assessed by judges &quot;who don&#39;t even use computers,&quot; said Dave Koehler, with the FTC&#39;s Bureau of Consumer Protection.The Spy Act would allow the FTC to fine spyware vendors up to $3 million for hijacking computers, delivering unwanted adware, and other violations, and $1 million for collecting personal data without permission, in addition to going after the vendor&#39;s profits and seeking consumer redress.Additional authority to impose civil fines would give the FTC &quot;an enormous deterrent,&quot; Leibowitz said.&quot;Right now, companies know that the worst they can do is lose their profits,&quot; he added. &quot;They&#39;re not going to get fined on top of that.&quot;The FTC has brought several spyware actions against companies. In February, the agency settled&#160;a case against adware distributor DirectRevenue. In that case, DirectRevenue settled for $1.5 million, based on its profits, but the founders of the company had received more than $20 million in venture-capital funding, Leibowitz said.While participants in the spyware forum said there continue to be many challenges, including a growing trend of foreign spyware vendors, the cost of spyware to U.S. consumers seems to be falling. Consumer Reports estimated that spyware cost U.S. consumers $2.6 billion in 2006, but only $1.7 billion in 2007, noted Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a supporter of StopBadware.org, a consumer-protection effort aimed at spyware and other malicious code.The drop in the cost of spyware can be attributed to a number of factors, Schwartz said. Antispyware technology is getting better, the FTC has taken action against spyware vendors, and StopBadware.org has distributed a&#160;list of malicious Web sites, he said. In addition, some states have taken action against spyware, and cybersecurity groups&#39; public education programs seem to be working, he said.But Ron Teixeira, executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), noted that consumers may know more about spyware, but they aren&#39;t always acting on their knowledge. A survey released by the NCSA and McAfee earlier this month found 78 percent of respondents&#39; computers didn&#39;t have all three of what the NCSA calls the &quot;core protection&quot; software: anti-virus, antispyware, and firewall.&quot;We&#39;re not seeing a huge increase in the actual behavior change,&quot; he said.
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House of Representatives approval means most American consumers will continue seeing tax-free Internet connection bills. President Bush is expected to sign off before current law expires this week.
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In an announcement this afternoon prior to the publication of the bill by the Library of Congress, two prominent representatives introduced a bill that apparently would grant a new exemption for private, non-commercial copies of digital content, from violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act - technically creating a new class of "Section 1201 exemptions."
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As Senate prepares to consider a Net access ban extension, Democrat behind original ban warns changes to current law approved by the House of Representatives could make that so.
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In a move that takes aim at file-swapping networks, the US House of Representatives voted to boost penalties for online piracy and increase federal police powers against Net copyright infringement.
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Legislation that would make it   illegal to obtain and sell consumers' telephone records could   come to a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday,   said Rep. Joe Barton, one of the measure's authors.
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Congress is poised to extend a ban on taxing Internet access, a move that would please Internet service providers but possibly cost states millions of dollars in lost revenue.
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the computer programs that surreptitiously track people&#39;s online movements -- are steamrolling their way through Congress and a combined proposal could
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Congressional lawmakers are taking a cue from Hollywood with an aim to beef up penalties against people who illegally swap copyrighted movies and songs over the Internet. Meanwhile, lawmakers also are targeting spyware and hackers with the threat of jail time for evil cyberspace deeds.
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The entertainment industry is pushing Congress to approve a bill that could send thousands of Internet music and movie downloaders to jail, but the legislation faces opposition from groups that say it would unfairly punish consumers.
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Congress is poised to extend a ban on taxing Internet access, a move that would please Internet service providers but possibly cost states millions of dollars in lost revenue. -washingtonpost.com
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Congress should proceed cautiously while considering bills to authorize a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program because of the potential impact on the technology industry, a tech trade group said Friday. A day after legislation to authorize the controversial NSA program stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) sent a letter to the committee raising concerns about surveillance programs that "undermine" government checks and balances in the U.S. Constitution. A massive surveillance program will hurt users' confidence in the privacy of communications networks and will put burdensome requirements on tech and telecom vendors, said Ed Black, president and chief executive officer of CCIA. The trade group's members include Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. "This is a very delicate area, and we have to be careful of what we do," Black said. "What the [Bush] administration has been pushing is a system without real limits, without real checks." U.S. President George Bush's administration has used the NSA program to monitor electronic communications of U.S. residents, without seeking court-issued wiretap orders. Bush, in a speech on Thursday, defended the program and said it helps keep U.S. residents safe. Although Bush administration officials continue to say the program is legal, Bush called on Congress to authorize the program as a way to head off multiple lawsuits challenging it. "The terrorists who want to harm America can now buy disposable cell phones, and open anonymous e-mail addresses," Bush said during a speech in Atlanta, Georgia. "Our laws need to change to take these changes into account." In August, a federal judge in Michigan declared the NSA program illegal, and in July, a federal judge in California, denied motions by the U.S. government and AT&T Inc. to stop a lawsuit over the carrier's alleged participation in the NSA program. On Thursday, a federal judge in Oregon rejected a motion by the U.S. government to stop a lawsuit there alleging the NSA program is illegal. An Islamic organization brought the lawsuit against Bush and directors of the NSA and Federal Bureau of Investigation. Also on Thursday, two bills to authorize the NSA program stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee when Democrats offered a series of amendments. Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, complained that Democrats were obstructing the legislation. Specter may try to bring the legislation up for a vote in the Judiciary Committee later this month. Black urged the committee to fully consider the economic effects of a large surveillance program. Telecom carriers and Internet service providers may have to store records of all communications for several months if the legislation is approved, he said. "We're running headlong into a major alteration of the way communications in this country are monitored without a thorough consideration of all the factors in play," Black said.