House Bill to Ban File Sharing
Here's news about some dire consequences for those who like to share copyrighted files. Of course Congress is getting into the act again. If you copy the "wrong" file a little smoke may come out of your computer, but they seem to think its ok.
From ExtremeTech July 31, 2002
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...,415648,00.asp
"House Bill Could Shut Down File Sharing"
A California Democrat introduced a bill Thursday that would make sharing of copyrighted files illegal, and would indemnify copyright holders from taking whatever actions they chose to prevent the sharing of those files.
The effect, if approved by Congress and signed into law, would be to virtually outlaw file-sharing as is commonly known. The bill was authored by and introduced by Rep. Howard L. Berman, a California Democrat representing the 26th Congressional District, which includes North Hollywood. Berman is the ranking member of the Congressional Committee on the Judiciary's subcommittee on courts, the Internet, and intellectual property.
The key provisos of the bill would indemnify, or free from legal penalty, copyright holders from whatever actions they would need to take to prevent sharing of copyrighted files.
"Notwithstanding any State or Federal statute or other law, and subject to the limitations set forth in subsections (b) and (c), a copyright owner shall not be liable in any criminal or civil action for disabling, interfering with, blocking, diverting, or otherwise impairing the unauthorized distribution, display, performance, or reproduction of his or her copyrighted work on a publicly accessible peer-to-peer file trading network, if such impairment does not, without authorization, alter, delete, or otherwise impair the integrity of any computer file or data residing on the computer of a file trader," the bill reads.
Form you own opinion... :mad:
