Last year, a court ruling held that peer-to-peer networks could not be held liable if their users swapped copyrighted materials. This year, federal lawmakers have introduced a new bill looking to change that: If signed into law, the Induce Act would effectively ban KaZaA, Morpheus, Grokster, and other P2P networks.
A draft of the U.S. Senate proposal says anything or anyone intentionally inducing any copyright law violation would be legally liable, with inducement defined under the draft language as aiding, abetting, inducing, counseling, or procuring – with punishments ranging from fines to prison.
The bill is expected to be introduced formally this week, following a delay in its original planned June 17 rollout. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was expected to introduce the bill, with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) expected to co-sponsor.
Both Cato Institute telecommunications studies director Adam Thieren and P2P United executive director Adam Eisgrau told AVNOnline.com they wanted to review the proposed bill in detail before offering comment on it.
Critics of P2P, including and especially the movie and music industries, often argue that P2P swapping has injured the "legitimate" purchase of movies and music, but there have been studies showing that the damage isn't as extensive as the movie and music industries fear. In fact, an informal survey conducted by Warez.com suggests that, regarding music, P2P file sharing may be boosting rather than burying music buying in the stores.
Taken by a reported 150,000 Netizens, the Warez.com survey showed buying music increased a little bit for some consumers after they discovered the P2P world, with lighter buyers of music seeming to buy more compact discs after they discovered online file swapping.
But the survey as of this writing showed 47.12 percent of those responding had bought ten or less CDs a year before they discovered P2P and 41.43 percent buying ten or less after learning about P2P. Among those who bought between ten and twenty CDs a year, 26.03 percent bought that many before they found P2P and 26.61 percent bought that many after discovering P2P.
The Induce Act already has its critics, including Wayne State University professor Jessica Litman. "They're trying to make it legally risky to introduce technologies that could be used for copyright infringement," Litman told CNET.com, a comment that seemed to suggest that the Induce Act could, in theory, be used against any Internet program deemed to facilitate or abet copyright violation. "That's why it's worded so broadly," she said.
