p2pnet.net News:- US Register of Copyrights Mary Beth Peters has already made it abundantly clear that she’s backing Judiciary Committee chairman senator Orrin Hatch’s INDUCE Act, Hollywood’s most powerful remaining anti-p2p weapon, wielded behind the spectre of child pornography.

The ACT is, “an over-reaching new form of indirect liability that will force technology companies of all kinds to ‘ask permission’ before innovating for fear of ruinous litigation if they don’t,” as senior EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) lawyer Fred von Lohmann describes it.

INDUCE sparked a massive back-lash from more than 40 companies and entities including CNET Networks, Google, NetCoalition, Novell and Yahoo!

And in a carefully worded statement, “We urge you to ensure that beneficial technologies are not put at risk by the need to stop badactors and to avoid overbroad or ambiguous standards that could chill innovation, deprive consumers of access to beneficial new technologies and encourage costly litigation,” says BSA (Business Software Alliance) boss Robert Holleyman in a statement which might have been taken almost word-for-word from INDUCE opponents.

BSA members include Adobe, Apple, Macromedia, Microsoft, Network Associates, Cisco Systems, HP, IBM and Intel.

‘Badactors’ is a phrase gaining currency within the entertainment industry and now Hatch and three other powerful politicians are trying to rally support against them, using Peters as a front.

Urged on by Hatch, Senate Republican leader senator Bill Frist, Democratic leader senator Tom Daschle and the Judiciary committee’s senior Democrat, Patrick Leahy, are asking for Peters’ help.

To the dismay of the entertainment industry, in the landmark Morpheus / Grokster decision, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th circuit ruled p2p operators aren’t liable for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement.

The decision left the members of the Big Four record label cartel and the major movies studios in the lurch, making INDUCE more important to the corporate entertainment industry than ever.

“There is little dispute that entities intentionally encouraging and promoting widespread infringement should be held secondarily liable for the infringement they intend to induce,” the senators wrote to Peters in a letter quoted by the Hollywood Reporter here.

“The imposition of such liability is particularly appropriate given that much file-sharing software automates the redistribution of infringing files so effectively that people making hundreds of works available for distribution to millions of persons around the globe can testify that they had no idea that they were engaged in the massive, global redistribution of those protected works.”

The senators, “tell Peters that ‘we remain open to other approaches’ asking her ‘to attempt to achieve consensus proposals’ and deliver them to the senators by Sept. 7,” says the report, also stating:

“Senate aides said the letter doesn’t mean that the senators have given up on their bill, although final passage this year is unlikely given that it is an election year and Congress has much unfinished work left to do.’This was a step contemplated from the beginning,’ one aide said. It’s a another step toward getting a bill through Congress’.”

And, “Paralysis is not an option,” the Hollywood Reporter has RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) boss Mitch Bainwol saying. “We remain eager to work on a common-sense compromise that fulfills the ultimate objective of targeting bad actors who are jeopardizing the future of music.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 21st, 2004 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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