Royalties vs Privacy:
Online Piracy Bill Aims To Make It Personal
by Jaimie
August 2002
The music and movie industry is in a dither over online trading. Afraid that the rampant trading online of music and movies will ultimately bring about the end of the entertainment industry, they're attempting to crack down on copyright violators: Americans who exchange songs and films they didn't buy by swapping these files online. Pirated works do not generate royalties, and since Hollywood likes to be paid, it's urging its lawmakers to take a stand.
It's been argued that due to rampant piracy, the entertainment industry, fed up with not being compensated for the pirated works, would essentially stop making new works. The likelihood of that actually happening is questionable; in essence it's the same struggle the movie industry had in the '70s and '80s, when they sued the makers of VCRs, claiming they violated copyright owners' reproduction rights. The Supreme Court in 1984 changed the "fair use" doctrine in response to the possibilities presented by the VCR, and in the long run, the movie industry embraced this "new" technology, and a booming video-tape rental industry was born. The movie industry did not collapse.
In 2002, however, technology is being fought with technology. A bill introduced into legislation by Californian Democratic Representative Howard Berman, (who happens to be the House's largest recipient of political donations via the entertainment industry) would lawfully enable record and music studios to enter file-sharers' computers to find illegally shared movies and music. The bill targets decentralized P2P (peer to peer) networks such as Morpheus; unlike Napster, the new P2P networks do not have a central server that can be shut down. Instead, the file-swapping takes place only through individual users' computers. It would not, according to Berman, allow the industry to spread viruses, destroy files or hack into a consumer's personal data, however. The proposal would lift civil and criminal penalties against these companies for "disabling, interfering with, blocking, diverting or otherwise impairing" the trading online of the pirated materials. It would allow the use of denial-of-service attacks, but only "as may be reasonably necessary." Companies will not be required to warn users in advance, and a user wrongly accused could only be allowed to sue if they'd suffered more than $250 in economic losses and gotten permission to file from the US attorney general. The claims process is apparently lengthy, and creates hurdles for consumers who suffer damage.
The public needs to be more informed on the specifics of how these companies will be able to 'run their fingers' through a person's computer, picking out the supposed pirated files. One needs to question where the companies will get their information, their lists of file-sharers to target. Questions need to be asked. Who will make that justification of what is 'necessary' to boot users offline? Will the 'Internet police' be on hand to protect consumers' rights as well as the copyright holders'? Who is going to protect people from being wrongly accused and/or harrassed? How will these files be found, specifically? Who will protect the public's privacy? The bill says it won't allow the copyright owners to hack into personal files, but who is going to be monitoring them?
This proposal is just another reflection of the industry's fears of economic losses, and is being used as an attempt to speed up copyright holders' protection. An agreement can't seem to be reached between the creators of the works, and the technology industry, as far as digital rights management (DRM) is concerned.
This is an issue that Internet users need to make themselves familiar with, because the issue will only escalate in the future. Become informed, and contact your local legislature and let them know how you feel about this.
Berman's full statement can be found here.
