[IP] more on Prison terms on tap for 'prerelease' pirates

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Chris Beck <cbeck@pacanukeha.net>
Organization: None At All
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 14:00:27 -0400
To: <dave@farber.net>, <dewayne@warpspeed.com>, Declan McCullagh
<declan@well.com>
Subject: Re: Prison terms on tap for 'prerelease' pirates

> File-swappers who distribute a single copy of a prerelease movie on the
> Internet can be imprisoned for up to three years, under a bill that's
> slated to become the most dramatic expansion of online piracy penalties
> in years.

Or a song. Or a book.  Or an article.  Or a piece of software.  Any
copyrightable work.

(C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial
distribution, by
making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the
public,
if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for
commercial distribution.

This will be useful to Sony when they want to crush the distribution of
Fiona
Apple's unreleased record, after all, the only thing that is necessary is
that
"the copyright owner has a reasonable expectation of commercial
distribution".


Title III seems useful (reauthorization of the National Film Preservation
bodies)

Title IV is very amusing.  Ooo!  Excellent!  They are addressing the Orphan
Works issue.  Not.

Cheers,
Chris

--
Chris Beck  -  http://pacanukeha.blogspot.com
"We cannot have a free government without elections; and if the rebellion
could force us to forgo, or postpone, a national election, it might fairly
claim to have already conquered us." -- Abraham Lincoln

------ End of Forwarded Message


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