p2pnet - rss feed: US Register backs INDUCE
p2pnet.net News:- US Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters backs Hollywood’s INDUCE Act and plans to say so today’s Senate hearing into it.
INDUCE is the ludicrous Hollywood-Hatch Act that would “put a foot on the throat of anyone coming to market with a new device, software product, or home networking system that handles copyrighted content,” said Gary Shapiro, chairman of the Home Recording Rights Coalition (HRRC).
Driven in by entertainment industry enthusiast senator Orrin ‘Terminator’ Hatch under his favourite Kiddie Porn ploy, INDUCE would, “chill innovation and drive investment in technology (and accompanying jobs) overseas,” says 42 companies including CNET Networks, Google, NetCoalition, Novell and Yahoo! and - in concert.
By an amazing coincidence, Hatch is also chairman of the The Senate Committee on the Judiciary which is holding the hearing. With him are equally ardent Hollywood supporters John Cornyn, Patrick Leahy, Lindsey Graham and Dianne Feinstein, all of whom have received generous support from the entertainment industry.
“By combining (1) a new and separate cause of action for ‘intentional inducement,’ (2) a lower civil, rather than higher criminal, standard of liability, and (3) a circumstantially ‘reasonable’ test, S. 2650 would seem to ensure that massive and intrusive discovery proceedings, and a jury trial, would await any innovator or investor who introduces to the market a product that some copyright owner, someplace, believes will ‘induce’ infringement.
However, INDUCE is an “important improvement over existing law,” says ZDNet story here, has Peters sayng, quoting from a statement. It goes on:
“Peters goes even further than the politicians supporting the Induce Act, saying a 1984 Supreme Court decision ’should be replaced by a more flexible rule that is more meaningful in the technological age.’ That 5-4 ruling said that VCRs were legal to sell because they were ‘capable of substantial noninfringing uses’ - a legal shield that one federal court has extended to cover the Grokster and Morpheus file-swapping networks.”
Peters is refering to the Betamax case under which the movie studios wanted a ban against the marketing of the first consumer VCR. But the US Supreme Court turned it down, stating:
“It seems extraordinary to suggest that the Copyright Act confers upon all copyright owners collectively, much less the two [studios] in this case, the exclusive right to distribute VTR’s simply because they may be used to infringe copyrights. That, however, is the logical implication of their claim.”
Forty-two saying they’re particularly worried about efforts to have Betamax re-visited.
“In Betamax, the Supreme Court held that the manufacturer of a product could not be held secondarily liable for infringing uses of the product by others so long as the product was capable of substantial noninfringing uses,” says a letter from the 42. “In other words, technology, in and of itself, could rarely be considered unlawful in the copyright context.
“This clear standard has given venture capitalists, engineers, and manufacturers the confidence and certainty that they could invest their resources in developing a wide range of consumer products without facing copyright liability. These products include personal computers, scanners, CD burners, modems, instant messaging products, and the software that enables them to operate.”
Go here for the full text.
“The testimony today should leave no doubt in the minds of any member of Congress or the media that S. 2560 is the fearsome and flawed product of a perfect policy storm,” says Adam Eisgrau, executive director of P2P United, the p2p industry trade group.
If INDUCE gets through, it will seem, “the raw power of America’s copyright cartel has grown to the point that, with the passage of S. 2560, Congress will have granted it control over the very climate on which our entire information economy – not just the entertainment industry - depends,” he says.
July 23rd, 2004 at 9:04 am
Ok Guys, this is my first post, since the revelation that imesh is now going to be used for ‘legitimate buisness’ within the years out, now I have a question.
If imesh is going to become a ‘legal’ P2P, then how can the senate release a bill that outlaws P2P activity as illegal, when imesh will be in buisness with licensed content directly from the record companies?
This situation doesn’t make sense, it’s strangley ironic if that’s the right word.
Lets look at a diagram:
People share music illegally -> Music industry attack sharers/downloaders. -> that doesnt work so they get senate to help them. ->senate attempt bill that infringes P2P companies -> while the companies are trying to license content on P2P that will be a technology outlawed at years out, thus losing the industry more money.
I’m only bringin this up as the senate constantly references the betamax case, now in that ‘the VHS can be used for legitimate and infringing works’ hmmmmmm, apparantly so can P2P so by making it illegal, ur effectively destroying a new buisness model, contradicting yourselves, and making yourselves look typically american. (Im English BTW)
Elliot
July 23rd, 2004 at 12:53 pm
So, we can sue vacuum tube manufacturers becuase you can make a memory array out of (many, many) tubes, we can sue the manufacturers of paper and pencil, because you can copy something down. We can sue your parents, because they had a child with a good memory who can remember lots of copyrighted information.
July 23rd, 2004 at 7:49 pm
the webcast of the hearings held yesterday are available here http://files.dmusic.com/video/induce.mov - requires quicktime or quicktime alternative.
July 23rd, 2004 at 8:28 pm
Like the other moronic laws regarding p2p, I’m sure this will pass - and damage our ability to make new products…. I mean why not, every thing else is already messed up.
Here’s reality though - straight and honest:
p2p users ‘are’ customers too - we may not buy as much as you’d like us to but ‘MOST’ of what we buy we’ve sampled on p2p. We, as a group, were ‘never’ big media buyers.. games, movies, music, whatever - yes, p2p has allowed us to be ‘much’ more specific with what we’re going to buy because we are ruling out the garbage by ‘trying’ it on p2p first.
Yep, there are ‘many’ p2p users whom purchase ‘nothing’ but guess what - they ‘NEVER’ would have anyway and the ‘losses’ have all been sMoKe and MiRrOrs - there have been no ‘real’ losses from p2p with one clear-cut exception - the idiots who burn the media and ’sell’ it to people at flea markets, whom would have likely otherwise bought the legit copy if a cheaper illegal one was not around - THAT is the area they need to worry about and not p2p itself.
The laws today are coming close to making it illegal to own a vcr or even a cassette recorder - they will soon make it illegal to have audio-input on computers and remove all mic-input’s on home stereo’s. DVD-R and CV-R’s are going to be illegal except for major corporation use.
It’s sad, but America is becoming a harsh dictatorship…. and I’m starting to wonder why I live here…. sad sad sad.
_-Jile-_
+=Contributory-Violations=+ Network Owner
Dream~Masters Network GM
~~~From the Direct Connect P2P~~~