New legislation before Congress makes the DMCA look like a Sunday afternoon in the park. This proposed new copyright law would add on to DMCA and “and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers.” This legislation was put together by the Bush administration and backed by Rep. Lamar Smith. “Smith is the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees intellectual-property law.” This legislation would take section 1201 and give it monster fangs.
The proposed law scheduled to be introduced by Rep. Smith also does the following:• Permits wiretaps in investigations of copyright crimes, trade secret theft and economic espionage. It would establish a new copyright unit inside the FBI and budgets $20 million on topics including creating “advanced tools of forensic science to investigate” copyright crimes.
• Amends existing law to permit criminal enforcement of copyright violations even if the work was not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.
• Boosts criminal penalties for copyright infringement originally created by the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 from five years to 10 years (and 10 years to 20 years for subsequent offenses). The NET Act targets noncommercial piracy including posting copyrighted photos, videos or news articles on a Web site if the value exceeds $1,000.
• Creates civil asset forfeiture penalties for anything used in copyright piracy. Computers or other equipment seized must be “destroyed” or otherwise disposed of, for instance at a government auction. Criminal asset forfeiture will be done following the rules established by federal drug laws.
• Says copyright holders can impound “records documenting the manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in” infringements.
Well crap.
