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New Senate bill would ban P2P networks

Posted at 2004-06-24 12:21:23 by Declan McCullagh
in Politech category "ip"

A new Senate bill would effectively outlaw file-swapping networks, but that's not the real news. It's easy to introduce legislation -- and much more difficult to get it enacted.

The real news here is that the new Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act already enjoys serious, bipartisan support. Look at the list of its sponsors: Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.; Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.; Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

Here's a summary from my News.com article:

Their legislation says "whoever intentionally induces any violation" of copyright law would be legally liable for those violations... The IICA is designed to overturn an April 2003 ruling from a federal judge in Los Angeles that said file-swapping services StreamCast Networks and Grokster were legal to operate... Critics were assailing the measure even before it was introduced, saying that in addition to outlawing peer-to-peer networks, it could imperil products like ReplayTV and even the VCR.

Here's the text of the bill, Hatch's statement, and Leahy's statement.

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