Jari Ketola
19 Apr 2004 15:38
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has expressed its concerns over two anti-piracy bills introduced in California. According to EFF the bills would dramatically impact Internet users' rights to privacy and anonymity.
California Assembly Bill 2735 and Senate Bill 1506 would require anyone who knowingly disseminates commercial recorded or audiovisual material over the Internet to mark it with his or her name and address or face a possible one-year prison sentence.
"These California anti-anonymity bills would force everyone - including children - to put their real names and addresses on all the files they trade, regardless of whether the files actually infringe copyrights," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "Because the bills require Internet users to post personally identifying information, they fly directly in the face of policy goals and laws that prevent identity theft and spam and protect children and domestic violence victims."
For example, the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) forbids collection of personally identifiable information from children online without parental consent.
"This bill creates criminal liability for sharing a single song or even a portion of a song or movie, but leaves no space for fair uses such as commentary, criticism, parody or educational uses of works," said EFF Activist Ren Bucholz. "This bill is supposed to stop piracy, but it may be the most ineffective and harmful method yet proposed."
EFF encourages all Californians to contact their legislative representatives, and let them know how they feel about the bills.
Source: EFF press release