New bills to limit file copying/sharing.

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

Lawmakers: Keep your tunes to yourself
By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com, July 11, 2002
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-943134.html?tag=fd_lede

"Legislators are readying a bill that could sharply limit Americans'
rights relating to copying music, taping TV shows, and transferring files
through the Internet."

snip

"Reps. Howard Coble of North Carolina and Howard Berman of California, who
authored the draft, say their proposed changes to copyright law follow
suggestions made last August by the Copyright Office. "

snip

"Under current copyright law
<http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/109.html>, Americans who record a
TV program or radio segment generally may "sell or otherwise dispose of"
that analog recording or digital file as they wish.  The proposed bill
would end that exemption, handing copyright owners substantial new control
over the distribution of their works by curtailing copying rights granted
to consumers under a doctrine known as "fair use."

snip

"Last month, Berman said he would introduce a bill to let copyright
owners, such as record labels or movie studios, launch technological
attacks against file-swapping networks, where their wares are illegally
traded. He plans to introduce it next week."

snip

"R. Polk Wagner who teaches intellectual property law at the University of
Pennsylvania, says the proposal has "the potential to cut back fair use
rather substantially."

"Let's say I obtained a copyrighted work under fair use, say a photo of
Mickey Mouse," Wagner said. "If I wanted to discuss, criticize or share
that work, I need to interact with other people. Yet section one of the
draft bill quite clearly says I have no rights to distribute the work,
which would seem to rather severely limit my use. In the digital era,
interaction takes place by transferring and copying files."

snip

"Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
went further in his criticism.  "The Berman-Coble change would arguably
make it illegal for me to swap my iPod with a friend for a week, something
I recently did," von Lohmann said. "Who knows what cool stuff might have
thrived in this niche exception, but for (this proposed) change"