Orrin Hatch gives us his thoughts on the 'PIRATE Act'

This story was brought to my attention via Slahdot. Recently, a bill entitled "Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act of 2004" aka the PIRATE Act was introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch and Patrick Leahy. Both lawmakers have been on the receiving end of significant sums of money "contributed" by the entertainment industries. You may find it no surprise then to discover that they are leading the charge to severly punish anyone who may put a dent in those cash flows. The Pirate act and another related bill are designed to criminalize P2P filesharing by lowering the burden of proof for law enforcement and proposing jail terms of up to 10 years. Under the bill, even sharing a single file (if a judge decides the value is over $ 10,000) could result in prison time. Below are some snippets from a speech by Orrin Hatch, United States Senator.

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Senator Hatch's remarks to the United States Senate follow:

Mr. President, I rise to join Senator Leahy in sponsoring the Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act (the 'PIRATE Act"), a measure that will provide the Department of Justice with tools to combat the rampant copyright piracy facilitated by peer-to-peer filesharing software.

Let me underscore at the outset that our bill does not expand the scope of the existing powers of the Department of Justice to prosecute persons who infringe copyrights. Instead, our proposal will assist the Department in exercising existing enforcement powers through a civil enforcement mechanism. After considerable study, we have concluded that this is the most appropriate mechanism.

 

 

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It is critical that we bring the moral force of the government to bear against those who knowingly violate the federal copyrights enshrined in our Constitution. But many of us remain concerned that using criminal law enforcement remedies to act against these infringers could have an overly-harsh effect, perhaps, for example, putting thousands of otherwise law-abiding teenagers and college students in jail and branding them with the lifelong stigma of a felony criminal conviction.

Another quote from later in the speech:

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But recently, some unscrupulous corporations may have exploited new technologies and discovered that the narrow scope of civil contributory liability for copyright infringement can be utilized so that ordinary consumers and children become, in effect, 'human shields" against copyright owners and law enforcement agencies. Unscrupulous corporations could distribute to children and students a 'piracy machine" designed to tempt them to engage in copyright piracy or pornography distribution.

Unfortunately, piracy and pornography could then become the cornerstones of a 'business model." At first, children and students would be tempted to infringe copyrights or redistribute pornography. Their illicit activities then generate huge advertising revenues for the architects of piracy. Those children and students then become 'human shields" against enforcement efforts that would disrupt the flow of those revenues. Later, large user-bases and the threat of more piracy would become levers to force American artists to enter licensing agreements in which they pay the architects of piracy to distribute and protect their works on the Internet.

Maybe the artists would get a better deal from the "piracy architects" couldn't be much worse than what they are getting now. My tax dollars hard at work in the United States Senate! You can visit this link to read the full text. 

Source: Sen Orrin Hatch

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