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Controversial Anti-Piracy Bill Signed Into Law

Posted on: Tuesday, 14 October 2008, 12:05 CDT

On Monday, President George W. Bush signed a controversial bill that would stiffen penalties for movie and music piracy at the federal level.

The office of intellectual property czar is the main part of the Bill. This czar will now report directly to the president on how to better protect copyrights both domestically and internationally. The Justice Department had argued that the creation of this position would undermine its authority.

Criminal laws against piracy and counterfeiting have also been toughened, although critics have argued that the measure goes too far and risks punishing people who have not infringed.

The Recording Industry Association of America, Motion Picture Association of America, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce all backed the bill.

"By becoming law, the PRO-IP Act sends the message to IP criminals everywhere that the U.S. will go the extra mile to protect American innovation," said Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, counterfeiting and piracy costs the United States nearly $250 billion annually.

The bill would give movie and music makers more tools to fight a "tidal wave" of counterfeiting and piracy of everything from medical devices to automobile parts to media by organized crime, said Rick Cotton, general counsel for NBC Universal.

"That is at the core of what this discussion is about," he said. "It is not about teenagers."

An IP czar will likely not to be named before Bush's term ends in January, Cotton said.

“It’s a relief to see lawmakers had stripped out a measure to have the Justice Department file civil lawsuits against pirates, which would have made the attorneys pro bono personal lawyers for the content industry,” said Richard Esguerra, spokesman for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

However, the advocacy group Public Knowledge had argued that the law went too far, especially given that fair use of copyrighted material was already shrinking.

Public Knowledge particularly opposed a measure that allowed for the forfeiture of devices used in piracy.

Public Knowledge spokesman Art Brodsky said: "Let's suppose that there's one computer in the house, and one person uses it for downloads and one for homework. The whole computer goes," said Brodsky argued that, at best, the bill was unnecessary because the recording and movie industry had the right to take accused infringers to court.

"There's already lots and lots of penalties for copyright violations," he said. "They've got all the tools they need."

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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