The draft Piracy Deterrence and Education Act aims to
criminalise file-sharing; to demand funding for the Justice
Department to initiate an internet use education program; and to
give the FBI powers to create an anti-piracy program that will warn
those caught infringing copyright and share information about such
incidents with copyright owners, enforcement agencies and ISPs.
According to the bill, those who make available: over $1,000 in
copyrighted materials; 1,000 or more copies of copyrighted
material; one or more copies of copyrighted materials worth $10,000
in value; or one or more copies of one copyrighted pre-release
material, shall be liable to a maximum of three years imprisonment
– or six years for a second or subsequent offence.
The trigger-level of $1,000 of copyrighted materials
approximates to making available the tracks on around 70 albums.
Those convicted shall also be liable to a fine, up to a maximum of
$250,000.
In the Senate, another controversial file-sharing bill is due to
be debated by the Judiciary Committee later this week.
The latest version of the Induce Act (otherwise known as the
Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act) would make anyone who
"intentionally induces any violation" of US copyright law liable
for that violation, presenting a threat to anyone who promotes a
peer-to-peer network such as Kazaa.
Consumer groups and civil liberties organisations are up in arms
over the proposals, which they see as being so broad as to attack
any service or device that has the potential to be used for
copyright infringement.
