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Article about dvd piracy, any reactions?
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THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL: Solving copyright infringement
The Providence Journal
Last Updated: January 3, 2005, 10:46:00 AM PST
(SH) - In the past year and a half, the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued thousands of people for illegal Internet file sharing. Also, in the past year and a half, the film industry won a key series of legal rulings that forced a company called 321 Studios to stop selling a DVD-copying software that had sold an estimated 1 million copies.
Meanwhile, outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft has formed a new task force on intellectual property, with a focus on drafting new ways to enforce intellectual-property laws and to crack down on file-sharing and other infringements of copyright. In the Senate, a bill sponsored by Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., gives the Justice Department power to bring civil suits against file swappers, with damages going directly to the copyright holders. In the House, a bill known as the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act would make it easier for copyright violations to be treated as federal felonies and force the Justice Department to start educating the public about online piracy.
The RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have spent millions to convince lawmakers and the public that rampant copyright infringement, enabled by technology, is destroying the livelihood of artists, and if it is not stopped soon, the commercial production of all new music and movies will end. At least in Washington, D.C., the persuasion appears to be working.
Certainly, Internet piracy of music and, increasingly, movies, continues to be a problem, although the financial costs have probably been overstated by industry.
It is theft and it is wrong.
The increasingly aggressive approach against this piracy, however, suffers from problems. One is that both the decentralized nature of the Internet and constantly evolving technology make it very difficult to stop piracy. And as long as the music and movie industry take an adversarial approach to their customers, their customers will take an adversarial approach to them, including via piracy. Finally, broad-brush attempts to crack down on piracy could have increasingly troubling consequences for honest consumers who simply want to store their purchased music or movies on their computers or make copies for personal use.
That's where legislation proposed by Reps. Rick Boucher, D-Va., John Doolittle, R-Calif., comes in. Boucher and Doolitte have proposed a Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act to strengthen consumers' "fair-use" rights - essentially making sure consumers retain their ability to make copies for personal use.
Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), it can be a federal crime to make a personal copy or transfer music or movies onto one's computer.
So far, Congress has yet to pass any legislation related to copyright infringement and music and movie piracy. But if and when it does, we hope that it will be careful to strike a balance. Using a sledgehammer to go after infringements is likely to be just as harmful to the music and movie industries as doing nothing at all about the problem.
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THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL: Solving copyright infringement
The Providence Journal
Last Updated: January 3, 2005, 10:46:00 AM PST
(SH) - In the past year and a half, the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued thousands of people for illegal Internet file sharing. Also, in the past year and a half, the film industry won a key series of legal rulings that forced a company called 321 Studios to stop selling a DVD-copying software that had sold an estimated 1 million copies.
Meanwhile, outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft has formed a new task force on intellectual property, with a focus on drafting new ways to enforce intellectual-property laws and to crack down on file-sharing and other infringements of copyright. In the Senate, a bill sponsored by Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., gives the Justice Department power to bring civil suits against file swappers, with damages going directly to the copyright holders. In the House, a bill known as the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act would make it easier for copyright violations to be treated as federal felonies and force the Justice Department to start educating the public about online piracy.
The RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have spent millions to convince lawmakers and the public that rampant copyright infringement, enabled by technology, is destroying the livelihood of artists, and if it is not stopped soon, the commercial production of all new music and movies will end. At least in Washington, D.C., the persuasion appears to be working.
Certainly, Internet piracy of music and, increasingly, movies, continues to be a problem, although the financial costs have probably been overstated by industry.
It is theft and it is wrong.
The increasingly aggressive approach against this piracy, however, suffers from problems. One is that both the decentralized nature of the Internet and constantly evolving technology make it very difficult to stop piracy. And as long as the music and movie industry take an adversarial approach to their customers, their customers will take an adversarial approach to them, including via piracy. Finally, broad-brush attempts to crack down on piracy could have increasingly troubling consequences for honest consumers who simply want to store their purchased music or movies on their computers or make copies for personal use.
That's where legislation proposed by Reps. Rick Boucher, D-Va., John Doolittle, R-Calif., comes in. Boucher and Doolitte have proposed a Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act to strengthen consumers' "fair-use" rights - essentially making sure consumers retain their ability to make copies for personal use.
Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), it can be a federal crime to make a personal copy or transfer music or movies onto one's computer.
So far, Congress has yet to pass any legislation related to copyright infringement and music and movie piracy. But if and when it does, we hope that it will be careful to strike a balance. Using a sledgehammer to go after infringements is likely to be just as harmful to the music and movie industries as doing nothing at all about the problem.
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