Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Senate Rules on MP3 Sharing and More

Yahoo! News - Senate Passes Scaled-Back Copyright Measure: "The U.S. Senate has voted to outlaw several favorite techniques of people who illegally copy and distribute movies, but has dropped other measures that could have led to jail time for Internet song-swappers.

People who secretly videotape movies when they are shown in theaters could go to prison for up to three years under the measure, which passed the Senate on Saturday.

Hackers and industry insiders who distribute music, movies or other copyrighted works before their official release date also face stiffened penalties under the bill.

Left out were several more controversial measures that would criminalize the actions of millions of U.S. Internet users who copy music and movies for free over 'peer to peer' networks like Kazaa.

Under a measure approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) last month, song swappers could go to jail for up to three years if they shared more than 1,000 copyrighted works."

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