[TriLUG] (Slightly OT)New Bill in Congress would make file-swapping a felony

Chris Merrill cmerrill at nc.rr.com
Thu Jul 17 11:05:56 EDT 2003


prhodes at vdsinc.com wrote:
> There's a new bill floating around in Congress, which would make uploading
> even ONE
> file over a P2P network a federal felony... get this... punishable by FIVE
> YEARS in
> jail, and a $250,000 dollar fine.

NO!  IT does NOT!   Did you _read_ the bill?

It refers specifically to COPYRIGHTED material.  It does not make file sharing
networks illegal.  Distributing copyrighted material without the authors
permission is already illegal - this simply makes it an offense to _offer_ the
material for public download via a computer network.  The way it is worded, it
would also apply to putting copyrighted material on a webserver...already
widely recognized to be illegal.

Incidentally, the bill also makes it illegal to register a domain name with
false identity information.  IMO, that's a good thing.


Chris


*********************************
Chris Merrill
cmerrill at nc.rr.com
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