Controversial File-Trading Bill Moves Forward
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Proposed law would allow more people to be charged with criminal copyright violations.
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Some powerful people have a bad feeling about online music--and that&#39;s making other folks in the tech industry nervous. A controversial bill in the Senate aimed at quelling online file swapping has raised
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It&#39;s a key argument in the use of file-sharing services -- and it&#39;s one that the United States Supreme Court says it will take up.
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A fight between two powerful lawmakers over boxing reform legislation might have KO'ed the anti-smut Family Movie Act and a bill that makes it a federal crime to camcord a movie.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee is considering a copyright bill that stands at the center of the file-sharing debate.
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Controversial bills proposed new penalties (including jail time) for copyright violations.
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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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The U.S. Supreme Court has set March 29 as the date for oral arguments on whether companies providing peer-to-peer file trading software should be held responsible for copyright infringement committed by users of their products. The arguments are part of a long-playing case pitting a cadre of entertainment industry players against distributors of the Grokster and Morpheus file trading software. The p-to-p companies have already won in district court and again last August when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Grokster, Morpheus distributor StreamCast Networks, and a site operated by StreamCast called Musiccity.com were not liable for copyright violations by their users. The entertainment companies, led by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), decided to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying there are seminal issues at stake. The Supreme Court is expected to issue an opinion by the end of July.
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After weeks of negotiations, the  U.S. Senate could take action this week on a bill that would  make it easier to sue "peer-to-peer" networks like Kazaa and  LimeWire that allow users to copy music and movies over the  Internet.
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FTC commissioners have approved a prospective settlement with Sony in the wake of the music company's problematic copy-protection attempts, which included rootkits and phone-home software. Now it's the public's turn to comment on the arrangement.
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The Motion Picture Association of America announced yesterday that it would shortly be following in the footsteps of the music industry and suing people who have illegally traded digital copies of films over the internet.
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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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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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After cobbling together a string of copyright bills in the hopes of gaining enough support for final passage, lawmakers are ripping the package asunder in
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By Cheryl Winkelman  A proposed state law that would require computer technicians to report child pornography hit a stumbling block this week.
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A bipartisan group of Senate leaders has asked the country's highest-ranking copyright official to rewrite controversial legislation targeted at companies that profit from encouraging the public to commit copyright piracy.
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The Senate could take action this week on a bill that would make it easier to sue "peer-to-peer" networks like Kazaa and LimeWire.