There are several copyright related bills before the lame duck Congress when it comes into session for the final time on Tuesday. The Pirate Act (S. 2237) is one of the most controversial acts on the table as it would allow the Department of Justice (DOJ) to file civil lawsuits against copyright infringers. Currently, the DOJ can only file criminal suits against infringers. This will greatly increase the amount of suits the government can file and increase the amount of convictions given the lesser burden of proof for civil suits.
Internetnews.com reports that many organizations such as the American Conservative Union (ACU), the Consumer Electronics Association, Public Knowledge, Verizon and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) want the lame duck Congress to skip any votes on the omnibus bill and leave intellectual property legislation to the 109th Congress, which convenes in January. The main concern with this bill is that it gets the government to pay for filing civil suits against infringers, while the infringed industries will recover the damages without paying a dime.
Stacie Rumenap, deputy director of the million-member ACU, summed of the concern best. "The Pirate Act isn't just ill-conceived, it's bad public policy. It needlessly and harmfully expands the role of government. [Under this bill] Who pays the legal bills for Hollywood? The American taxpayers. And as a bonus, Hollywood companies get to collect the fines."
Apparently, members of the MPAA, RIAA, and other copyright supporters feel there is such a strong public policy behind protecting copyrights that the public should pay to prevent it. At first blush it seems like this is a cheap way of getting someone to do your work for you and making out like a bandit in doing so. Then again, it is the public that is costing the copyright owners money, so maybe there is some legitimacy to this idea. However, this would also force those people who play by the rules to pay for copyright abuse and this would be even more unjust than having the copyright owners lose money. This is especially true since the copyright owners can get their share back by suing the infringers in a civil suit without the government getting involved.
Further, it is not like those being infringed upon are unrepresented. The MPAA and the RIAA have already been filing many civil suits and will continue to do so. There is no real reason why it would be necessary for the government to subsidize these suits. It would seem a more logical approach by the supporters of this bill to take a different tact. They may feel the government would be able to get information on infringers more readily, so maybe the supporters should work to make the information more accessible. They should try to work with the government instead of having the government do the work for them. The supporters could also try to get bills passed that would allow for recovery of attorney fees if that is such a concern for the group.
It seems this is more of an effort to put greater fear into the minds of infringers by getting a bigger fish such as the government involved. This strong arm tactic appears to be rather unnecessary and if passed would be a rather abusive means of force. Most groups don’t get the government to file civil suits on their behalf, why should copyright owners be any different?
Hopefully the lame duck members don't get an itch to make some drastic moves in their last moments. It would seem a wiser move to allow such a large measure to be looked at in more detail and to be put before the newly elected Congress in January.
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