The US entertainment industry, led by the Recording Industry
Association of America, has been trying for years to counter the
phenomenon of file-sharing, where users distribute and download
copyrighted music over P2P services.
Legal actions against the networks, file-swappers, the creators
of software that circumvents security features, and the purchasers
of that software have all been filed, with varying degrees of
success.
But the industry has also been lobbying hard for the
introduction of laws that will more fully protect it from copyright
abuses. The proposed Induce Act (otherwise known as the Inducement
Devolves into Unlawful Child Exploitation Act) is the latest of
these.
Likely to be introduced to the Senate this week by Senator Orrin
Hatch, the bill makes it an offence to intentionally induce any
violation of the existing US Copyright Act. It defines
"intentionally induces" as "intentionally aids, abets, induces,
counsels, or procures", and infringers face fines or even a prison
sentence.
The proposals have not yet been officially published, but have
already been criticised by consumer groups and civil liberties
organisations for being so broad as to attack any service or device
that has the potential to be used for copyright infringement.
Jeff Joseph, vice president for communications at the Consumer
Electronics Association, told CNET News.com: "It's designed to have
this fuzzy feel around protecting children from pornography, but
it's pretty clearly a backdoor way to eliminate and make illegal
peer-to-peer services. Our concern is that you're attacking the
technology."
The problem with legislating against decentralised P2P services
is that shutting down the network will be near impossible. You can
act against individuals who use the services; you can act against
individuals or companies that make the networking software
available to others; but unless you stop or sufficiently deter all
these parties, you can't shut down the pure-P2P network itself.
