Proposed Crime of the Century: Attempted Copyright Infringement http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/05/ippa07
Back in May 2007 Attorney General Alberto Gonzales suggested a new bill that would make "attempted copyright infringement" a crime, punishable by up to life in prison. He would need a sponsor in the House or Senate to make Congress consider it, and I don't know if anyone has agreed to sponsor it yet. This is a really scary law, considering how many currently innocuous activities (such as having a spindle of blank CDs next to your computer) could be made into serious criminal offenses. This is an excerpt from the WIRED article:
Essentially, the bill would turn copyright law into something more akin to existing drug laws: The government could seize personal property, wiretaps would become legal for the first time, violators could face life in prison and, in an ambiguous and far-reaching provision, the mere attempt to violate a copyright would become a crime.
The Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007, proposed by Gonzales on Monday, would amend current U.S. copyright law to give the government far more power to investigate and prosecute cases, expand the scope of what constitutes a criminal act, and would stiffen penalties, including adding life terms for those whose activities cause death.
Among the proposed changes, the bill would make it easier to charge someone as a repeat offender and stiffen the penalty for recidivism. It would expand forfeiture provisions to allow the government to seize any property used in the commission of a crime -- a PC, a home, cash on hand.
Exporting pirated material would also become a crime and the bill would grant the feds wiretapping authority, which it currently lacks. The "attempt" provision, stipulating that mere intent constitutes a crime, means that the law could conceivably be expanded to interpret a computer full of music next to a spindle of blank CDs as an act of piracy.
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