Bill making file sharing a federal crime now awaits Bush’s approval
By Weiping Yang
April 26, 2005 9:00 p.m.
Anyone who has even a single copy of a pre-released song or
movie could be prosecuted as a federal felon and jailed for up to
10 years if President Bush signs a new piece of legislation.
Last Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed the Family
Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005.
Already having cleared the Senate on Feb. 1, the bill now awaits
Bush’s signature. He is expected to sign it into law.
Under the bill, possessing or distributing songs or movies prior
to their commercial release or using video cameras to record films
in a theater would be federal crimes carrying lengthy jail time and
stiff fines.
Regardless of whether downloading took place, penalties could
include a prison term of up to 10 years and stiff fines of up to
$250,000.
The bill targets peer-to-peer file sharers, which includes many
college students.
Professor Francis Steen in the UCLA Department of Communication
Studies said that the bill is a continuation of the federal
government and private companies’ efforts to criminalize
sharing.
Steen said the purpose of copyright law should be to foster
creativity by rewarding people who come up with new ideas, but said
that current laws no longer seem to serve this function of
encouraging progress in the arts and instead “close off the
realm of creativity, turning things into proprietary
material.”
“(The bill) hinders creativity, because culture always
builds on what comes before,” Steen said.
Under current law, unauthorized reproduction and distribution of
copyrighted materials can already be prosecuted as federal crimes.
But the value of the unauthorized copies must meet or exceed a
total retail value of $2,500, even if no money has changed
hands.
The Justice Department typically reserves criminal charges for
the most serious cases.
UCLA law Professor Mark Grady expects the bill to make UCLA
students think twice before participating in file sharing.
“The penalties are so severe that I expect that they will
have an effect on file sharers, especially if they are
enforced,” Grady said.
But Tom Quickel, a graduate student studying chemistry,
disagreed. He said he would not change his file-sharing habits.
“That’s ridiculous,” Quickel said.
“I’m not really worried because who isn’t doing
that?”
Congressman Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, principle sponsor of the
Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, said in a statement that
the bill would “close some significant gaps in our copyright
laws that are feeding some of the piracy so rampant on the
Internet.”
Along with doling out stricter criminal penalties to file
sharers, the bill also affirms the right to use technology to skip
objectionable audio and video content, allowing parents to shield
their children from profanity and other adult material on movies
watched at home.
Users and makers of such editing technology will be exempt from
copyright infringement liabilities.
