Author, Consumer, and Computer Owner Protection and Security (ACCOPS) Act of 2003

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of H.R. 4077, the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2004, as amended today by the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting to pass this important and worthy piece of legislation.

Prior to reporting H.R. 4077 by voice vote earlier this month, the Committee on the Judiciary gave this bill great deliberation. This bill and its precursors, H.R. 2517 and H.R. 2752, were the subject of several subcommittee hearings and a subcommittee markup. Through the extensive process given to this bill, the Committee on the Judiciary crafted a measure that makes important contributions and advances in the fight against widespread electronic theft of copyrighted works.

Intellectual property theft has become a rampant and serious threat to the livelihoods of all copyright creators. Digital technologies like the CD burner, the Internet, and the MP3 audio-compression standard, while enhancing the consumer experience, have greatly facilitated copyright theft and led to an explosion in its prevalence. Studies indicate that at any given time more than 850 million copyright- infringing files are being illegally offered for distribution through just one peer-to-peer, file-swapping network. Innumerable Web sites, file transfer protocol servers, Internet affinity groups, and Internet relay chat channels also constitute havens for copyright theft.

Copyright theft injures copyright creators of all types, whether they are songwriters, photojournalists, graphic designers, software engineers, or musicians. On the human level, illegal downloads of songs supplant legal downloads and thus deny songwriters the 8 cents they are due for each legal download. At the macro level, the worldwide software industry alone is estimated to have suffered $29 billion in packaged software loss due to piracy during 2003.

While not a panacea, the changes made by H.R. 4077 will play an important role in addressing the piracy problem. It has become clear that law enforcement authorities need additional resources, statutory authority, and incentives to become productive participants in the antipiracy battle. H.R. 4077 is designed to address these needs.

Specifically, sections 103 and 105 of the bill engage Federal law enforcement agencies in the effort to deter and educate the public about copyright crimes. Section 103 establishes a voluntary program through which the FBI, with cooperation from Internet service providers, can inform Internet users about suspected infringement. Section 105 directs the Department of Justice, in conjunction with the U.S. Copyright Office, to establish an Internet use education program. Section 106 enables criminal prosecution of copyright infringement involving unregistered works.

This will assist copyright owners, such as photographers, who generally cannot register their copyrighted works, and, as a result, effectively cannot afford to bring civil actions against infringers. By raising the possibility of criminal prosecution, section 106 would create a credible deterrent against the theft of unregistered works.

Section 108 deals with the growing phenomenon of copyright thieves who use portable digital video recorders to record movies off theater screens during public exhibitions. I was recently in Pakistan, and on the hotel TVs they showed ``Catwoman,'' still out in theaters; and as you watched, you could hear people coughing in the background, or indeed standing up to get popcorn. Plainly, not a legitimately copyrighted exhibition.

Organized piracy rings widely distribute copies of these surreptitious recordings, both online and on the street. Section 108 clarifies that it is a felony to surreptitiously record a move in a theater.

Section 110 makes the potential criminal prosecution a more credible deterrent to egregious infringements by otherwise judgment-proof infringers. Section 110 does this by ensuring that criminal copyright prosecutions can be brought against copyright infringers who knowingly distribute massive amounts of copyrighted works or enormously valuable copyrighted works with reckless disregard of the risk of further infringement.

Section 112 of H.R. 4077 did generate some concern during the Committee on the Judiciary consideration because it resolves a legal question at the heart of a pending Federal litigation. While many members of the Committee on the Judiciary believe section 112 inappropriately intervenes in this Federal legislation, support for the balance of H.R. 4077 convinced these members to support the bill as a whole.

Thus, H.R. 4077 is, on balance, a well-crafted bill that will provide valuable and targeted assistance in the battle against copyright piracy.

It is worth noting that while not universally embraced, H.R. 4077 has garnered widespread consensus support. Groups as diverse as the Professional Photographers Association, the Video Software Dealers Association, and needlepoint designers have written in support.

The widespread support is a credit to its sponsors, who worked assiduously during committee consideration to address many of the concerns raised. In fact, H.R. 4077 itself was introduced as a replacement for H.R. 2517 and H.R. 2752, both of which contained several more controversial provisions.

During consideration of this bill, it has been amended to include changes sought by Internet service providers, universities, theater owners, broadcast networks, consumer groups, parallel importers, the Department of Justice, and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. While I would not go so far as to say that H.R. 4077 has the affirmative endorsement of all concerned, I do believe that most of the legitimate concerns have been accommodated.

In summary, this bill as amended today advances important and necessary objectives, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting it.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to join my colleague in congratulating my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman), who I know wanted to be here to manage the floor time on our side of the aisle, for his great contributions to this legislation and protection of intellectual property.

I also want to thank the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith), for his extraordinary job during these 2 years in advancing the cause of protecting, really, the one industry that has a positive balance of trade with every other country in the world, and that is the intellectual property industry.

So I want to thank our subcommittee chairman and thank our full committee chairman for their work on this bill today and more generally on the issue of protecting intellectual property theft.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bill but with strong opposition to section 112. While the bill contains numerous anti-copyright piracy provisions that I helped draft, I oppose section 112 because it is an anti-copyright, special interest provision that will interfere in a pending lawsuit.

The content industries provide this country's number one export; in fact, copyrighted content provides a positive trade balance of approximately $89 billion. Clearly, our content is a valuable resource that deserves protection.

Unfortunately, the same technologies that have enhanced our lives and globalized trade have made it possible to obtain digital content for free; the same technology that enhanced the lives of so many is harming the lives of people--the artists, musicians, writers, etc.--whose work we value so much.

While there are laws on the books that protect copyrighted content from theft, they do not go quite far enough. New file swapping programs and sites appear every day on the Internet, each one better than its predecessor. These sites do not develop their own content but rely upon the popularity of content created by others and allow that content to be distributed to millions with the click of a mouse. These sites also create security and privacy risks, in that they open up the entire hard drives of average consumers for the world to see, financial and personal information included.

I was a cosponsor of Chairman Smith's bill, H.R. 2517, but felt that we could do even

more to thwart piracy. That is why Ranking Member Berman and I introduced H.R. 2752, which provided for increased enforcement of the piracy laws. For the past several months, we have been working in bipartisan fashion to craft language that is non-controversial and workable.

In that regard, I am pleased that the compromise bill incorporates numerous provisions from the original Conyers-Berman bill. H.R. 4077 clarifies that it is a federal offense to camcord a movie in a theater. This is a major means by which movies end up on the Internet for free. I think we can all agree there is little legitimate reason for engaging in this conduct and need to send a clear message that we will not tolerate this theft. It also ensures that theaters owners are exempt from liability if they attempt to enforce this prohibition.

The bill contains a sense of the Congress recognizing the potential dangers of misused peer-to-peer services (such as spreading worms, viruses, making personal computer files available to the public).

Third, the bill provides additional tools to prosecute those who upload copyrighted content to the Internet unlawfully, and I was pleased the content and Internet industries were able to compromise on this provision. It also provides an authorization of $15 million for the Justice Department's piracy fighting efforts, an increase over the traditional $10 million.

Finally, the legislation includes language similar to a provision in an earlier bill of mine, H.R. 4643 from the 107th Congress, saying the distribution of unpublished or pre-release works can constitute infringement. This is important for industries whose content ends up on the Internet before it is even released to the public.

Unfortunately, I am disappointed that our year-long bipartisan effort has been tainted by the addition of section 112, which is identical to H.R. 4586. H.R. 4586, the ``Family Movie Act of 2004,'' is an anti- content creator proposal that interferes in a private lawsuit. It puts Congress on one side of a private business dispute that is properly left to the litigants and the court.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4077) to enhance criminal enforcement of the copyright laws, to educate the public about the application of copyright law to the

Internet, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 4077, the bill currently under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation addresses the growing piracy problem facing our Nation's creative community. New technologies have made copyright piracy an even easier activity to undertake than before. The number of pirating files continues to increase. Although the technology is not the problem, our Nation's laws need to be updated to reflect the impact of this new technology.

In response to the increase in piracy, the copyright community has been investing time and money in campaigns to educate America about the need to respect copyrights. The Attorney General and other senior administration officials have spoken publicly about the piracy problem and their efforts to fight it in our court system. Schools and universities have begun requiring incoming freshmen to attend copyright education programs before granting them access to the university computer networks.

Yet there seems to be a belief among America's youth, and even some of their parents, that copyright piracy is either an acceptable activity or one that carries low risk of penalties. This needs to change.

Under existing legal authority, the Department of Justice has identified problems that prevent it from pursuing high-volume file sharers. Section 10 of this legislation provides new legal authority to pursue those making available 1,000 or more files. The content

community sees government-run public service campaigns as an important counterpart to their education effort. Section 5 provides for such a government-run campaign.

Parents want to be able to learn of illegal activity by their children before they are sued by a copyright owner or the Department of Justice. Section 3 of this legislation creates a voluntary warning system that will allow parents to receive a warning like the kind that still occurs in small towns today. When a child is doing something wrong, the local cop on the beat tells his or her parents about it. Once alerted to their child's behavior by a friendly warning from the local cop, the parents can put a stop to behavior then and there. I believe that a DOJ warning letter sent to the parents will have the same impact on them and their child's behavior as the policeman's friendly warning.

Finally, H.R. 4077 contains the Family Movie Act that clarifies that existing copyright and trademark law cannot be used to prevent a parent from deciding what their children see in the privacy of their own home. I do not take kindly to those who would presume to tell parents how they decide what is best for their children.

In addition, because of the limited floor time at this time of year, the bill also includes the text of H.R. 1775. This bill designates the oak tree as the national tree.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith), the Chair of the subcommittee and the principal author of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, first of all I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin, the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, for yielding me time.

Also at the outset I want to acknowledge that this legislation represents a genuine bipartisan and cooperative effort. The gentleman from California (Mr. Berman), who I understand is on his way to the House floor from the airport, was a partner in the effort to write this legislation and has contributed many good ideas to the final product. So I want to acknowledge his good work as well as his input and say that I appreciate his support.

Mr. Speaker, piracy of intellectual property over the Internet, especially on peer-to-peer networks, has reached alarming levels. Millions of pirated movies, music, software, game and other copyrighted files are now available for free download from suspect

peer-to-peer networks. This piracy harms everyone, from those looking for legitimate sources of content, to those who create it.

I have heard from songwriters, video store owners, software publishers, and game developers who feel the impact of such piracy every day. They have urged Congress to help them educate the public about the harms of piracy while also warning and penalizing those who continue to steal from others.

Peer-to-peer technology is an essential development of our Nation's high-tech economy. However, like all new technologies, peer-to-peer technologies have been abused by those who want to commit crimes. Our Nation's laws need to be updated to reflect the harms that can be caused by this new technology, without penalizing the technology itself.

This legislation addresses P2P piracy by better educating the public about copyright law, authorizing the creation of a system to warn online users of potential infringement, penalizing those who bring camcorders into movie theaters for the purpose of making pirated DVDs, assisting Federal law enforcement authorities in their efforts to investigate and prosecute intellectual property crimes, and designating designated intellectual crime agents within DOJ Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Sections to prosecute cybercrimes. The Internet has revolutionized how Americans locate information, shop and communicate. We must not let new Internet technologies become a haven for criminals.

Mr. Speaker, also included in H.R. 4077 is an updated version of H.R. 4586, the Family Movie Act of 2004, which the committee reported out in July. Parents should have the right to watch any movie they want and to skip over or mute any content they find objectionable. This legislation ensures that parents have the final say in what their children watch in the privacy of their own home and that parents can act in the best interests of their children. Parents need all the help they can get in protecting their children from the sex, violence, and profanity found in many movies; and parents should be able to determine what their children see on the screen. Technology that helps parents accomplish this should be applauded, and H.R. 4077 ensures that this technology will not face continued legal challenges.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to pass this important piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4077 today because I feel it is important for Congress to keep pace with those who use new technology to defraud consumers.

As a co-sponsor with our colleague Heather Wilson of the Anti-SPAM bill, I'd like to also thank my colleagues on the Energy and Commerce and Judiciary Committees for taking action on this legislation.

We live in an age when technological breakthroughs bring us better, more efficient lives. However, these breakthroughs also entice people to take advantage of others for personal and financial gain.

Congress needs to address these types of issues quickly because as we all know, the fast pace of technological growth will always bring with it new issues for Congress.

During our experience with the Anti-SPAM bill, we all came to an understanding that technology itself is not the problem--it is the way some entities use technology that is harmful to consumers.

This legislation balances consumer protections against Spyware with the need to allow industry to use software technology to provide useful products and services to consumers.

I'm glad to stand with colleagues from both sides of the isle on this issue and rise to support this legislation. This bill will protect us from spy ware and get our law enforcement agencies involved in helping make the internet a more secure place to conduct business, communicate and learn.