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[FYI] (Fwd) FC: Weekly column: Be a P2P pirate, go to jail? Could happen soon...
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 09:53:47 -0500
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: politech@politechbot.com
Subject: FC: Weekly column: Be a P2P pirate, go to jail? Could happen soon...
Send reply to: declan@well.com
http://news.com.com/2010-1071-982121.html
Perspective: The new jailbird jinglee
By Declan McCullagh
January 27, 2003, 4:00 AM PT
WASHINGTON--If you've ever used a peer-to-peer network and swapped
copyrighted files, chances are pretty good you're guilty of a
federal felony.
It doesn't matter if you've forsworn Napster, uninstalled Kazaa and
now are eagerly padding the record industry's bottom line by
snapping up $15.99 CDs by the cartload.
Be warned--you're what prosecutors like to think of as an
unindicted federal felon.
I'm not joking. A obscure law called the No Electronic Theft (NET)
Act that former U.S. President Bill Clinton signed in 1997 makes
peer-to-peer (P2P) pirates liable for $250,000 in fines and subject
to prison terms of up to three years. (You may want to read it,
since you'll likely be hearing more about it soon.)
That's a long time to spend cooling your heels in Club Fed.
Yet something strange is going on here. So far the Justice
Department has made precisely zero prosecutions of peer-to-peer
users under the NET Act.
[rest snipped, available at
http://news.com.com/2010-1071-982121.html ]
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