New legislation signed in California aims to cut P2P piracy

On Tuesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had signed legislation in California that requires residents that wishes to distribute commercial music or video to more than 10 individuals to disclose their E-mail address and work title.  The aim of this is to allow infringing users be traced or contacted for copyright violation and also eliminate the 'anonymous' feel out of file sharing.

Those who do not disclose their E-mail address face penalties of up to $ 2,500 and up to 1 year jail time.  Otherwise, minor copyright infringers face a fine of up to $ 250 on the first two offences and then increases to $ 1,000 for the third offence and one year county jail time. 

The only exceptions to this law include content distributed to the user's immediate family, over a home network or if the user has got permission to do so.  The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) hailed the signing of the law.  The EFF was against this as disclosing E-mail addresses would infringe on the consumer's privacy.  The MPAA was also sponsoring the new legislation.  GristyMcFisty used our news submit to submit the following news:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law Tuesday establishing fines and potential jail time for anonymous file swappers. The new law says that any California resident who sends copyrighted works without permission to at least 10 other people must include his or her e-mail address and the title of the work. Swappers who do not include this information will face fines of up to $ 2,500 and up to one year in prison. Minors can be fined up to $ 250 for their first two offenses, and a minor's third offense can bring a $ 1,000 fine and a year in county jail. The law provides exemptions for people sending works to immediate family members and for the transmission of works inside a home network. Read other info on this at Digital Silence here.

This is obviously bad news for Californians that love their peer-to-peer software.  If many consumers do end up sharing out their E-mail address even with content they are unsure about, not only does this put them at risk, but can make P2P an ideal tool for spammers what harvest E-mail addresses. 

Interestingly, this is the first law I heard of that
aims to reduce P2P piracy without actually trying to ban P2P software or add
hardware based measures.  On the other hand, it makes P2P usage a privacy issue since customers must expose their E-mail address if they plan on sharing content.  On the other hand, this law could be subject to abuse if consumers provide bogus or someone else's E-mail address, potentially putting innocent consumers at risk.  This is very different on how safe file sharing was considered to be in California previously.

Source: CNET News - Digital Media