[FYI] (Fwd) FC: Look out, pirates: RIAA wants to hack your PC

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Tue, 16 Oct 2001 13:47:47 -0700
To:             	politech@politechbot.com
From:           	Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject:        	FC: Look out, pirates: RIAA wants to hack your PC
Send reply to:  	declan@well.com

Text of original RIAA amendment to the anti-terrorism bill, which RIAA
says it no longer supports:
http://www.wartimeliberty.com/article.pl?sid=01/10/14/1756248

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http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47552,00.html

    RIAA Wants to Hack Your PC
    By Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com)
    2:00 a.m. Oct. 15, 2001 PDT

    WASHINGTON -- Look out, music pirates: The recording industry
    wants the right to hack into your computer and delete your stolen
    MP3s.

    It's no joke. Lobbyists for the Recording Industry Association of
    America (RIAA) tried to glue this hacking-authorization amendment
    onto a mammoth anti-terrorism bill that Congress approved last
    week.

    An RIAA-drafted amendment, according to a draft obtained by Wired
    News, would immunize all copyright holders -- including the movie
    and e-book industry -- for any data losses caused by their hacking
    efforts or other computer intrusions "that are reasonably intended
    to impede or prevent" electronic piracy.

    In an interview Friday, RIAA lobbyist Mitch Glazier said that his
    association has abandoned plans to insert that amendment into
    anti-terrorism bills -- and instead is supporting a revised
    amendment that takes a more modest approach.

    "It will not be some special exception for copyright owners,"
    Glazier said. "It will be a general fix to bring back current
    law." Glazier is the RIAA's senior vice president of government
    relations and a former House aide.

    The RIAA's interest in the USA Act, an anti-terrorism bill that
    the Senate and the House approved last week, grew out of an
    obscure part of it called section 815. Called the "Deterrence and
    Prevention of Cyberterrorism" section, it says that anyone who
    breaks into computers and causes damage "aggregating at least
    $5,000 in value" in a one-year period would be committing a crime.

    If the current version of the USA Act becomes law, the RIAA
    believes, it could outlaw attempts by copyright holders to break
    into and disable pirate FTP or websites or peer-to-peer networks.
    Because the bill covers aggregate damage, it could bar anti-piracy
    efforts that cause little harm to individual users, but meet the
    $5,000 threshold when combined.

    [...]




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