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New law cracks down on illegal P2P

By Derek Sooman

On April 28, 2005, 1:24 PM

Continuing the war on illegal P2P, the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act was approved by the House of Representatives last Tuesday, which basically means that "anyone who has even one copy of an unreleased film, software program or music file in a shared folder could be subjected to prison terms of up to three years and fines."

"The protection of intellectual property rights is vital to the movie industry. This bill is necessary to ensure that all those involved in the production of a film, from the director to the set carpenter, are not cheated." - Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican.

Naturally, the president of the MPAA wanted to voice his personal gratitude to the congressional sponsors of this legislation, since the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act also includes sections criminalizing the use of camcorders to record a movie in a theatre, and authorizing the use of technologies that can delete offensive content from a film. Basically, all of the things that keep movies and music flowingly freely over the internet are being made illegal and punishable by fines and prison time.

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4 comments

User Comments: 4

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  1. April 28, 2005 5:33 PM
    Tarkus said:
    I'll bet the president of the MPAA will be happy to send the congressmen on 'fact-finding' junkets to the world-wide vacation spot of their choice as a result of this legislation.
    Reply
  2. April 28, 2005 6:06 PM
    phantasm66 said:
    The congressmen WORK FOR the MPAA. They will even be on the secret payroll.
    Reply
  3. May 2, 2005 10:49 PM
    zephead said:
    right..."secret"
    Reply
  4. May 3, 2005 6:28 AM
    Mictlantecuhtli said:
    Not very secret, but four years old data:[url]http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/client.asp?id
    16401[/url][url]http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/clien
    .asp?id=19723[/url]
    Reply

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