Jari Ketola
23 Jun 2003 10:31
A new anti-piracy bill called Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2003 was introduced in Congress on Thursday. The bill would drag FBI into the fight against P2P piracy by instructing them to develop a program to deter online traffic of copyrighted material. They would also have to come up with a FBI warning for copyright holders to issue to suspected violators. Last but not least the bureau would encourage sharing of information on suspected copyright violations among law enforcement, copyright owners and ISPs.
Especially the fact that FBI could encourage (in other words tell) ISPs to hand out subscriber details is troubling. We've already seen that DMCA is a very powerful weapon for the RIAA. Passing the bill would be like handing an M16 to a trigger-happy lunatic holding a shotgun.
Additionally the bill calls for the Department of Justice to hire agents who are familiar with intellectual-property issues as well as computer hacking.
RIAA and MPAA obviously both welcomed the bill.
Source:
News.com