The U.S. Copyright Office is expected to approve new legislation on Capitol Hill that would all but ban peer-to-peer networks and even some consumer electronics devices, if the devices could be shown or are known for use in copyright piracy.
U.S. Registrar of Copyrights Marybeth Peters was expected to endorse the legislation at a July 22 Senate hearing, calling it an "important improvement over existing law," according to CNET, which cited an advance copy of her statement. Peters is also said to have stated that a 1984 Supreme Court ruling that said videocassette recorders are legal to sell should "be replaced by a more flexible rule that is more meaningful in the technological age."
Known as the Induce Act, the bill is feared as potentially endangering such products as Apple's iPod digital media player. Among other things, the bill would make liable for copyright violations anyone who "intentionally induces any violation" of copyright law, which some analysts fear could be made to mean product makers whose goods can be used for copyright infringement even if the makers did not intend them that way.
The Induce Act has received one prominent thumbs-down, however: former Intel executive vice president Les Vadasz, who wrote in The Wall Street Journal this week that the bill holds too many undesirable side effects and promises a "chilling effect…on innovation," a promise he wrote cannot be underestimated.
Vadasz's sentiments were echoed by a letter signed by CNET, eBay, Google, Intel, MCI, TiVo, Verizon, Sun Microsystems, and Yahoo, while support for the Induce Act has come from the Business Software Alliance (including Adobe and Autodesk), the American Federation of Musicians, the National Music Publishers' Association, the Nashville Songwriters Association, and the Songwriters Guild of America.
