- While the entertainment industry has had some recent
setbacks in its fight against piracy in the courts and in Congress, it
has a new ally in John Ashcroft, who recently pledged to make cracking
down on copyright violators a top priority.
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- On Tuesday, the attorney general released a report from
the Department of Justice's Intellectual Property Task Force that outlines
plans to beef up enforcement of copyright violations.
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- "With the recommendations put forward by the task
force, the department is prepared to build the strongest, most aggressive
legal assault against intellectual property crime in our nation's
history,"
Ashcroft said in a statement.
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- Those recommendations include increasing the number of
FBI agents to sniff out copyright violators, better training programs for
prosecutors and law enforcement officers who investigate such offenses,
and increasing cooperation between businesses and individuals affected
by such theft.
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- The report -- which covers copyrights, trade secrets,
trademarks and patents -- also says that those who benefit most from this
theft "are criminals, and alarmingly, criminal organizations with
possible ties to terrorism."
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- Calling it "music to our ears," Mitch Bainwol,
CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, praised the Justice
Department for making the prosecution of copyright violators a priority.
"No administration has ever mounted such a comprehensive approach
to defending America's gift to the world -- our creativity," Bainwol
said in a statement.
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- The Motion Picture Association of America also applauded
the recommendations.
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- The task force also lends its support to several pieces
of copyright legislation. The Justice Department supports the Induce Act
(SB2560), which would hold businesses liable for encouraging people to
infringe copyright. It also supports the Piracy Deterrence and Education
Act (HR4077), which would amend copyright law "to clarify that it
may be a violation merely to offer copyright works in a digital format
for others to copy," according to the report. The task force also
endorsed the ART Act (SB1932), which makes it a felony to use a video
recording
device in a movie theater.
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- The task force opposes the Boucher Bill (HR107), however,
when it states that "the circumvention of technological safeguards
protecting copyright works should be subject to prosecution." The
Boucher Bill would permit the sale of devices for fair-use purposes.
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- Extra enforcement help from the Justice Department is
unnecessary, and should such recommendations be implemented, privacy will
suffer, according to Jason Schultz, an attorney with the Electronic
Frontier
Foundation.
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- In the report, the task force suggests expanding wiretap
capabilities for authorities investigating intellectual property crimes
that could affect public health or safety.
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- "This is the opening of the door," Schultz
said. "This report shows that they want to use copyright infringement
as a mechanism for them to expand the scope of who they can snoop on.
That's
obviously something that we're very concerned with."
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- The report also takes a page from the drug wars, Schultz
said, when it recommends criminalizing "the possession of counterfeit
goods with the intention of selling or otherwise trafficking in
them."
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- That proposed rule could be applied to internet
distribution,
Schultz said. "You're turning tens of millions of people into
criminals
for doing nothing more than downloading or uploading a single song,"
he said. "We're talking about kids listening to music or watching
movies."
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- Copyright owners already have plenty of options to pursue
copyright violators right now, according to another observer.
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- "The rights holders have an easy a game as you can
imagine when it comes to going after offenders," said Mike Godwin,
legal director of Public Knowledge, a consumer rights group.
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- Over the past year, the music industry has sued thousands
of individuals who allegedly offered copyright songs on the internet for
others to download.
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- The peer-to-peer piracy problems facing the music and
movie industries are not likely to go away with additional enforcement,
Godwin added.
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- "Certainly it is appropriate to enforce your
interests
(as a copyright holder)," Godwin said. "But you also need to
restructure the way to do business to accommodate what people actually
do with the new tools they have."
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- "This is a clear example of getting taxpayers to
fund the RIAA's private war," Schultz said.
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