BILL WOULD INVOLVE FBI IN COPYRIGHT FILE-SHARING ENFORCEMENT

Bipartisan leadership of House panel on online copyright issues introduced bill that would intertwine FBI with rights owners’ efforts to stop unauthorized file-sharing. Courts, Internet & Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chmn. Smith (R- Tex.) introduced proposed Privacy Deterrence & Education Act (H- 2517) late last week with co-sponsorship by ranking member Rep. Berman (D-Cal.) and No. 2 Democrat Conyers (Mich.).

Measure would require FBI to “develop a program to deter” copyright infringement using Internet, including issuing “appropriate warnings” to participants “that they may be subject to criminal prosecution.” FBI also would have to “facilitate the sharing” of information about Internet infringement among law enforcement, ISPs and copyright owners.

Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft would have 3 months after enactment to designate, under unspecified criteria, copyright owners authorized “to use the [FBI] seal for deterrent purposes in connection with physical and digital copies and phonorecords and digital transmission of their works.” Bill also would require new Internet Use Education Program, under Assoc. Attorney Gen.’s office, to coordinate with Commerce and Education depts., respectively, on corporations’ and educational institutions’ Internet copyright compliance.

As for education, new program would inform “public concerning the value of copyrighted works and the effects of the theft of such works on those who create them [and] concerning the risks of using the Internet to obtain unauthorized copies of copyrighted works.” Finally, measure would clarify that prohibitions on importation of works protected abroad applied even if they weren’t registered in U.S.

MPAA and RIAA applauded measure. MPAA Pres. Jack Valenti said: “This bill is a sensible step toward ensuring that the government plays a proper role in educating our young people about the importance of respecting intellectual property, and giving the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement officials the personnel and programs necessary to help them fight this scourge.”

But libertarians decried what they called outsourcing of private copyright enforcement to federal govt. “I would be concerned by a bill that turns the FBI into private cops and gives private cops the right to claim they're coming from the FBI,” Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Wendy Seltzer said. Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of Harvard’s Berkman Center on Internet & Society said he worried about federal govt.’s hanging over universities and employers, enforcing monitoring requirements.