US Justice Department ready to prosecute file-swappers
08:51 Wednesday 21st August 2002
Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com

American federal authorities are turning their attention from terrorists to users of peer-to-peer networks, who could be jailed for up to five years
The US Department of Justice is prepared to begin prosecuting peer-to-peer pirates, a top government official said on Tuesday.

John Malcolm, a deputy assistant attorney general, said Americans should realise that swapping illicit copies of music and movies is a criminal offense that can result in lengthy prison terms.

"A lot of people think these activities are legal, and they think they ought to be legal," Malcolm told an audience at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's annual technology and politics summit.

Malcolm said the Internet has become "the world's largest copy machine" and that criminal prosecutions of copyright offenders are now necessary to preserve the viability of America's content industries. "There does have to be some kind of a public message that stealing is stealing is stealing," said Malcolm, who oversees the arm of the Justice Department that prosecutes copyright and computer crime cases.

In an interview, Malcolm would not say when prosecutions would begin. The response to the 11 September terrorist attacks temporarily diverted the department's resources and prevented its attorneys from focusing on this earlier, he said.

A few weeks ago, some of the most senior members of Congress pressured the Justice Department to invoke a little-known law, the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act, against peer-to-peer users who swap files without permission.

Under the NET Act, signed by President Clinton in 1997, it is a federal crime to share copies of copyrighted products such as software, movies or music with anyone, even friends or family members, if the value of the work exceeds $1,000 (about £640). Violations are punishable by one year in prison, or if the value tops $2,500, "not more than five years" in prison.

Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), said his industry would "welcome" prosecutions that send a message to song-swappers.

"Some prosecutions that make that clear could be very helpful... I think they would think twice if they thought there was a risk of criminal prosecution," said Sherman, who was on the same conference panel.

Christopher Cookson, executive vice president of Warner Bros. and another panelist, said there was "a need for governments to step in and maintain order in society".

Swapping files in violation of the law has always been a civil offense, and the RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have the option of suing individual infringers and seeking damages.

But, Malcolm said, criminal prosecutions can be much more effective in intimidating file-swappers who have little assets at risk in a civil suit. "Civil remedies are not adequate... Law enforcement in that regard does have several advantages," Malcolm said. "We have the advantage, when appropriate, of opening up and conducting multi-jurisdictional and international investigations.

"Most parents would be horrified if they walked into a child's room and found 100 stolen CDs... However, these same parents think nothing of having their children spend time online downloading hundreds of songs without paying a dime."

Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association, said he was sceptical about the view that peer-to-peer piracy should be a criminal offense. "If we have 70 million people in the United States who are breaking the law, we have a big issue."

The DOJ already has used the NET Act to imprison noncommercial software pirates, which software lobbyists hailed as "an important component of the overall effort to prevent software theft".

During his confirmation hearing in June 2001, attorney general John Ashcroft told Congress that "given the fact that much of America's strength in the world economy is a result of our being the developer and promoter of most of the valuable software, we cannot allow the assets that are held electronically to be pirated or infringed. And so we will make a priority of cybercrime issues".

The letter from Congress complains of "a staggering increase in the amount of intellectual property pirated over the Internet through peer-to-peer systems". Signed by 19 members of Congress, including Senator Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat, Representative James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, the letter urged Ashcroft "to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks".

Originally posted by huzefa
Traded 'hundreds' of songs. That doesn't sound like much; especially considering that the P2P services have been around for a couple of years now.

Stars Come Out Against Net Music Piracy in New Ads

By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 26, 2002; Page A22

The music industry is launching a star-studded advertising campaign, using artists such as Britney Spears and Stevie Wonder to tout its most recent anti-piracy effort.

Full-page ads are scheduled to appear in newspapers today and will be followed by television and radio spots, urging consumers to stop downloading songs from illegal file-sharing sites on the Internet. The multimillion-dollar campaign coincides with hearings today before the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on courts, the Internet and intellectual property.

At issue in the House is a bill introduced in July by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.). If it passes, it would protect copyright holders -- such as artists and record labels -- from liability for any damage they may cause while using software to disrupt file-sharing services and search public files on consumers' computers for illegal reproductions of copyrighted music.

The movie industry uses a similar technology, called Ranger, that travels through the Internet, looking for illegally downloaded movies on home computers.

The ad campaign is sponsored by several organizations, including the Recording Industry Association of America, the music industry lobby; copyright groups, such as the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc.; and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists union. The major record labels are footing the campaign's bill.

The music industry attributes a decline in CD sales -- a 5 percent drop in 2001 from 2000 and a 7 percent drop in the first half of this year -- to music pirated over the Internet via popular file-sharing services.

At its height in February 2001, the Napster file-sharing service had 13.6 million U.S. users. Napster eventually shut down in the face of legal action. Now Kazaa Media Desktop is the most popular file-sharing service, with 8.3 million U.S. users in June, according to ComScore Media Metrix, which tracks Internet use.

Nearly 90 singers and songwriters have signed the newspaper ad, and several have lent quotes to the campaign. The group is diverse, including opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti, hip-hop superstar Eminem, country music's Dixie Chicks and former Beach Boy Brian Wilson.

Pop diva Spears, who will appear in the television ads, offers: "Would you go into a CD store and steal a CD? It's the same thing, people going into the computers and logging on and stealing our music."

Hilary B. Rosen, chief executive of the RIAA, said that illegal song downloading is not only against the law, "it also hurts the very artists and songwriters most downloaders profess to love."

Moving the artists out in front of the music industry's fight against piracy is a new strategy. The sentiment among many who illegally download songs is that their actions amount to justifiable theft -- that they are taking from a corporate monolith that is overcharging for CDs and fails to provide songs on an à la carte basis, which consumers increasingly desire.

The RIAA hopes this campaign will avoid the fan backlash that was inflicted on the heavy-metal group Metallica, which was the first major name to come out against Napster and online piracy. The band members were depicted as corporate stooges and anti-fan.

Somewhere in the middle of the debate are groups that do not necessarily encourage music piracy but do believe efforts to thwart it may be a smoke screen thrown up by a record industry that's been slow to come up with viable, legal alternatives to online piracy.

"I'm excited to see musicians take a more active role regarding piracy, accounting practices, radio consolidation, contract reform and other structures that impact their livelihood," said Jennifer Toomey, executive director of Washington's Future of Music Coalition and a singer-songwriter. "We hope that piracy [will] not be used as a code word to cover up the recording industry's slow adoption and licensing of new technologies -- technologies that may create a more efficient and equitable industry for musicians and citizens."

Originally posted by Penny Lane


Seriously, Britney. I'm going to pay $20 for your crappy cd so you can sport your $2,000 Dolce and Gabbanna BLUE JEANS while I wear my Old Navy $20 blue jeans.