A new bill is in Congress that would allow copyright owners to hack into personal computers to stop users from downloading copyrighted music material.
Music piracy online has been a hot topic for years now. The battle has raged back and forth between Internet sites and the record industry. The most infamous of these caes was Napster.
The court ruled that the site was operating illegally and ordered it to shut down in 2000. Now new sites exist and illegal trading of music is more prevalent than ever, especially on college campuses.
New sites are not centralized, so there isn’t a single person that can be held responsible, as the case with Sean Parker, founder of Napster. Thus far the entertainment industry has been combating such sites by tracing downloads and suing individuals, and by creating spoofs. Spoofs are files that, once downloaded, are empty or don’t open.
The bill was proposed by congressman Howard Berman, D-CA. It states that copyright owners can legally hack into peer-to-peer networks if there is a reasonable cause, being exempt from previous state and federal laws (of privacy??) The copyright owners are not required to give warning when they hack into a computer. Once connected to a computer, however, the owners cannot delete material, only block copyrighted materials.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) have supported this new bill.
“We applaud Congressman Berman for introducing bipartisan legislation that takes an innovative approach to combating the serious problem of Internet piracy,” said Hilary Rosen, chairperson and CEO of the RIAA. “Online piracy undermines the growth of legitimate music sites and hurts all consumers in the long run.”Concerns about computer security in general have been introduced as well.
“The bill is a nightmare,” said Mark Lemley, professor of intellectual property of law at the University of California at Berkeley. “I am amazed that after Sept. 11 members of Congress are willing to sacrifice our nations computer security in order to give Hollywood yet another tool in its already formidable arsenal against piracy.”
