Watch Out in Election, Fair-Use Groups Tell Supporters of New Copyright Bill
Self-labeled copyfighters are girding for battle with House IP Subcommittee Chmn. Smith (R-Tex.) and Judiciary Chmn. Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) over the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006, circulating in draft form at Smith’s behest (WID April 25 p7). The bill would increase penalties for copyright infringement and add intent to infringe as a punishable offense on the same level as actual infringement. It would also classify as “trafficking” possession of devices that circumvent DRM tools with intent to distribute, a provision that has a prominent security researcher up in arms. Current law bans actual distribution of such devices, not private use for research.
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The Information Policy Action Committee (IPac) said it would take on members of Congress supporting the bill in the 2006 election. The bill would create “a generation of criminals” by doubling maximum prison terms for infringement, adding new offenses and creating a copyright division in the FBI to “hunt down infringers,” IPac said. It encouraged fellow fair-use proponents to tell their representatives and senators that they won’t vote to reelect them “if they do not publicly denounce this bill.” Supporters should send to IPac their notes from Hill conversations including the staffers’ names, the group said. The new political action committee is also behind a campaign to give iPods to influential senators on tech policy (see separate story).
The bill “would probably increase the DMCA’s chilling effect on research,” Princeton U. Computer Science Prof. Ed Felten said. The Freedom-to-Tinker.com blogger, who recently told the Copyright Office he held back on divulging research on Sony BMG CDs because of DMCA legal concerns (WID April 3 p1), said risks to researchers would expand under the Smith bill. “The researcher would have to worry that a plaintiff or prosecutor will misjudge his intent and bring a case… Even if the claim of bad intent is baseless, refuting it will be slow, painful and expensive,” he said. Apart from research hassles, the penalties for “small-scale” infringement or intent to infringe would exceed average federal sentences for much worse crimes, Felten claimed, including manslaughter, racketeering and arson.
The Smith draft “isn’t overly alarming on first glance,” but it’s far from clear that the formal bill will retain the same provisions, the Progress & Freedom Foundation’s Patrick Ross told us. Provisions seem aimed at “clarifying that activities currently considered illegal are in fact illegal” and raising penalties. Ross said he supported the increased prosecutorial resources in the bill but added that “appropriators wouldn’t be bound” to fund such resources if the bill passes.
A House Judiciary Committee spokesman declined to explain the timing of the draft’s circulation or comment on reports that it came from DoJ. “We don’t have any timetable for introduction,” the spokesman said, and no deadline for comments from other congressman -- the latter seeming to reverse a memo distributed by IP subcommittee staff that gave a deadline of last Fri. April 13 is marked as the draft bill’s last revision. RIAA and MPAA couldn’t be reached for comment.
Asked whether Symantec supported the provisions of the draft surrounding penalties for circumvention -- which could have banned the firm’s removal of malicious DRM software from Sony CDs on PCs -- a spokesman referred us to the Business Software Alliance (BSA), to which Symantec belongs: “We're trying to be coordinated” as a group on the bill. BSA hadn’t seen the draft as of late Tues., a spokeswoman told us: “Discussions have started within our member companies” on certain provisions they want added into copyright law, though.