Jun 18, 8:05 AM EDT
Senator Takes Aim at Illegal Downloads
By TED BRIDIS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Illegally download copyright music from the Internet
once, or even twice, and you get a warning. Do it a third time, and your
computer gets destroyed.
That's the suggestion made by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee
at a Tuesday hearing on copyright abuse, reflecting a growing frustration in
Congress over failure of the technology and entertainment industries to
protect copyrights in a digital age.
The surprise statement by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that he favors
developing technology to remotely destroy computers used for illegal
downloads represents a dramatic escalation in the increasingly contentious
rhetoric over pirated music.
During a discussion of methods to frustrate computer users who illegally
exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology
executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading.
Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking
laws.
"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf
of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds
technology to deliberately download pirated material very slowly so other
users can't.
"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer
"may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."
The senator, a composer who earned $18,000 last year in song-writing
royalties, acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for
copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed
technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online
behavior, "then destroy their computer."
"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd
be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way,
then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred
thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their
actions.
"There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," Hatch said.
Some legal experts suggested Hatch's provocative remarks were more likely
intended to compel technology and music executives to work faster toward
ways to protect copyrights online than to signal forthcoming legislation.
"It's just the frustration of those who are looking at enforcing laws that
are proving very hard to enforce," said Orin Kerr, a George Washington
University law professor and former Justice Department cybercrimes
prosecutor.
Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee's senior Democrat, later said
the problem is serious but called Hatch's suggestion too drastic.
"The rights of copyright holders need to be protected, but some Draconian
remedies that have been suggested would create more problems than they would
solve," Leahy said in a statement. "We need to work together to find the
right answers, and this is not one of them."
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., urged Hatch to reconsider. Because Hatch is
Judiciary chairman, "we all take those views very seriously," he said. But
Kerr said Congress was unlikely to approve any bill to enable such remote
computer destruction by copyright owners "because innocent users might be
wrongly targeted."
A spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America, Jonathan
Lamy, said Hatch was "apparently making a metaphorical point that if
peer-to-peer networks don't take reasonable steps to prevent massive
copyright infringement on the systems they create, Congress may be forced to
consider stronger measures." The RIAA represents the major music labels.
The entertainment industry has gradually escalated its fight against
Internet file-traders, targeting the most egregious pirates with civil
lawsuits. The RIAA recently won a federal court decision making it
significantly easier to identify and track consumers - even those hiding
behind aliases - using popular Internet file-sharing software.
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