Performance Rights Act

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support S. 3325, the ``Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act of 2007.'' I was a co-sponsor of this legislation when it was introduced before the House as H.R. 4789, and I urge my colleagues to join me in voting in support of this legislation. I am confident that this bill can address and strengthen criminal and civil enforcement of United States intellectual property law.

The purpose of the Senate bill is to strengthen criminal and civil enforcement of United States intellectual property law focusing, in particular, on copyright violations (piracy) and trademark violations (counterfeiting). In addition, the PRO-IP Act seeks to modernize and improve U.S. government efforts for coordination and enforcement of our nation's IP laws.

The knowledge and innovation of American citizens contributes significantly to the economic strength of our nation. Intellectual property law provides the principle incentives that are calculated to lead to the creation and production of new works. This bill is needed because the effect of piracy and counterfeiting on the economy is devastating. Total global losses to United States companies from counterfeiting and copyright piracy amount to $250 billion per year. Every company in every industry is vulnerable.

Because these illegal activities represent a growing public health, safety and law enforcement problem, S. 3325 provides additional targeted resources for investigation, enforcement and prosecution; requires the development and promulgation of a national Joint Strategic Plan to combat counterfeiting and piracy; and provides for enhanced Presidential level leadership and coordination among federal agencies involved with preserving and protecting intellectual property rights.

Title I of S. 3325 provides enhancements to civil intellectual property laws. Specifically, Title I makes it clear that a certificate of registration will satisfy registration requirements regardless of whether there is any inaccurate information on the registration application, unless the inaccurate information was included with knowledge that it was inaccurate.

Title I also broadens the civil remedies for infringement by broadening the scope of articles that may be ordered impounded by the court upon a finding that the article was made or used in violation of a copyright. This Title also directs the court to enter a protective order to ensure that confidential information is not improperly disclosed.

Title II provides enhancements to criminal intellectual property laws by addressing repeat offender penalties for criminal acts contained within the criminal copyright statute. Title II clarifies that a repeat offender is a person that commits the same criminal act twice. The bill clarifies that any property subject to forfeiture must be owned or predominantly controlled by the violator in order to be seized and directs the United States Sentencing Commission to consider whether the sentencing guidelines should be expanded to include the export of infringing items. There are enhanced maximum statutory penalties for counterfeit offenses that endanger public health and safety.

Title III of S. 3325 provides greater coordination and strategic planning of federal efforts against counterfeiting and piracy. Specifically, this Title establishes within the Executive Office of the President, the Office of the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative and, within that Office, the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative, appointed by the President of the United States. Lastly, Titles IV and V provide international enforcement, national, and local enforcement.

While I supported the House version of the bill and I support this Senate version, I would like to consider ways to ensure diversity in the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIPs) units that are established by this bill. I would like to work to ensure that minorities be represented in the hiring and that special recruitment initiatives be launched at historically black colleges and universities and other minority serving institutions. We should do all within our efforts to guarantee that minorities receive the necessary training and be recruited to help in the IP enforcement at the Executive, State, and local levels.

Simply, Mr. Speaker, S. 3325 is a first step toward the promotion of the American economy. It ensures that American innovation will remain crucial to the United States economy and that American innovation will allow the United States to remain a global economic power. Indeed, this bill ensures that the United States IP laws are enforced and that the American intellectual property system remains one of the best in the world.

I urge all members to support this much needed and thoughtful legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to my friend and colleague from North Carolina (Mr. Coble), a former chairman of the Intellectual Property Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee and now the ranking member of that subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon), a former chairman of the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee and now the ranking member of that subcommittee.

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

Mr. Speaker, the principal purpose of S. 3325, the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008, or PRO-IP Act, is to improve the government's response to the threats posed by counterfeiting and piracy.

At the outset, I want to recognize Chairman Conyers, IP Subcommittee Chairman Berman, and IP Subcommittee Ranking Member Coble, each of whom helped to advance the House version of this legislation, H.R. 4279, which passed the House in May by an overwhelming vote of 410-11.

I also want to say at this point that I happen to agree with the concerns expressed by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Zoe Lofgren). And while I agree with their concerns, particularly their objection to the provision that was changed by the other body, I am still going to support this legislation as it stands and hope to make a change in the future that will address their concerns.

Over the past 25 years, perhaps no group of industries has been more responsible for the sustained growth in our economy than those who rely on strong patent, trademark and copyright protections. Today, our technology, entertainment, and productivity-based enterprises stand as pillars of our economic and export strength. They employ 18 million Americans and account for 40 percent of our economic growth.

The successes of our IP rights-holders--family-owned small businesses and Fortune 500 companies alike--make them prime targets for international pirates and counterfeiters. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, this criminal activity costs U.S. citizens up to $250 billion every year, and has contributed to the loss of up to 750,000 jobs.

The PRO-IP Act is a measure that is designed to respond to these challenges. The bill contains provisions that; one, strengthen our laws against counterfeiting and piracy; two, provide new resources to key agencies involved in the enforcement of IP rights; and three, require a new and unprecedented level of coordination and leadership on IP enforcement issues from the White House.

Mr. Speaker, while our government agencies are doing more today to protect IP than ever before, the reality is that we must do even more if we are to increase the cost of doing business for counterfeiters and traffickers, some of whom are connected to organized crime.

With competing priorities and limited resources, our government agencies must work in a cooperative and coordinated fashion to leverage our IP enforcement efforts. By statutorily elevating these issues to the White House level and requiring the continuous and systematic development of an unprecedented national strategy to target IP theft, the PRO-IP Act represents an important first step towards ensuring our government agencies work efficiently and in concert to develop a joint response to this pervasive threat.

Congress has a duty to ensure that IP enforcement is made a permanent priority of every administration. This

measure, while not containing all of the provisions that were in the House measure, is a first step towards achieving our goals.

By supporting S. 3325, the House will send a clear message to the White House and future administrations that there is a bipartisan and bicameral commitment to the protection of our vital national and economic interests. So I urge my colleagues to support S. 3325.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill.

While we do need to focus our efforts to combat criminal activity related to intellectual property, the unbounded forfeiture provision in this bill isn't about going after criminals, it's about going after the Internet.

The language in the House bill, the bill that we sent over, although problematic in some ways, at least had some measures to ensure that there was a meaningful connection between the property subject to seizure and the underlying offense. This bill, back from the Senate, strips away those assurances. It subjects to seizure ``any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of an offense.'' That unqualified language means that virtually anything through which Internet traffic passes is subject to seizure, no matter how incidental the connection to the offense or how innocent the owner.

This provision shifts the liability for infringement--and thus responsibility from enforcement--onto innocent intermediaries, whether they are ISPs, businesses, schools, libraries, or consumers. We have seen this before this year and will likely see it again as time goes on. We saw the same type of provisions--although not as wildly extravagant--in the Higher Education Act, even after colleges told us it would divert resources from their primary mission of education. We're seeing it in the secret negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that apparently is going to, in some manner, require ISPs to police the conduct of their users, potentially in violation of their privacy rights.

I understand why the content industry pushes for these measures. They're trying to protect an analog business model in the digital environment, and that's difficult and expensive; and treating one's customers like criminals is bad for PR. Accordingly, the content industry has every incentive to make others do the work for it.

What I don't understand is why Congress goes along with these proposals. With each successive Congress, copyright law and policy becomes less of a balanced system of rights to promote creativity and innovation and more of a set of tools by which certain corporate interests protect themselves.

In our unbridled zeal for IP enforcement and utter indifference to the rights of users and consumers, we are losing sight of the underlying principles of our copyright system. This bill takes us further away from those principles. And I would add that I can't think of a single other circumstance where civil libertarians would even consider the concept of seizing the property of innocent bystanders in any other legal scheme, whether it was fraud or any other matter. We wouldn't permit that, and we should not permit it in this case.

I urge that we defeat this bill. And although there are some provisions in it that are meritorious, there is consensus for those, we can certainly adopt them next year. I urge defeat and yield back to the chairman with thanks.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Texas, and I doubt that I will use 5 minutes but I thank Mr. Smith.

I rise, Mr. Speaker, in support of S. 3325.

Every year our economy loses an excess of $200 billion to counterfeiting. This has directly impacted many American businesses and also cost our country countless jobs. Today, counterfeiting has grown into a global and illicit black market trade.

S. 3325 will help our government address counterfeiting from two perspectives. First, from an organizational perspective, it creates an Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator in the Executive Office of the President to oversee interagency anticounterfeiting efforts. This person will be responsible for making intellectual property rights a priority for every arm of our government and ensuring that government works efficiently to unearth counterfeit goods and apprehend distributors.

Second, from an enforcement perspective, it authorizes funding for State and local anticounterfeiting efforts and for the Justice Department to create and implement a long range anticounterfeiting enforcement plan and provides new resources for IP and computer-related criminal prosecutions and investigations by the Department of Justice and the FBI.

The version of the PRO-IP bill that was written by the House Judiciary Committee and passed this body by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 410-11 in May contained a number of new initiatives and authorities that I would have preferred to see included in this bill. That said, the glass is by no means half empty. Its enactment will help our law enforcement agencies better detect, prosecute, and deter counterfeiters.

I cannot convey the full implications that counterfeit goods have had on my congressional district, which is home to the furniture capital of the world. We pride ourselves on workmanship and quality, but even the furniture market is vulnerable to knockoffs and counterfeits.

The enactment of S. 3325 is an important step in our government improving our response to this illicit trade. I thank the distinguished gentleman from Texas, the ranking member; the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Berman), who chairs the subcommittee; and our chairman, the distinguished gentleman from Michigan, for all the work that they have devoted to this matter and for their tireless leadership in leading the fight against counterfeiting in the Congress for many years.

I urge all Members to support S. 3325, and I thank the Speaker and I thank the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I very much thank the chairman for yielding and for all the work that he has done to bring this bill to this point.

I rise in support of S. 3325, which is the Senate's companion bill to the chairman's and a number of us, our bill, H.R. 4279, which passed the House overwhelmingly by a 410-11 vote on May 6, 2008. S. 3325, like H.R. 4279, makes necessary changes to our intellectual property laws, improves coordination of our intellectual property enforcement efforts, and devotes more resources to tackling the scourge of intellectual property crime.

The proliferation of intellectual property crime has had a disastrous impact on our economy and on public health and safety. Counterfeit and pirated products may account for up to 10 percent of the world's trade, and a significant portion of these are American products. Conservative estimates indicate that U.S. business loses up to $250 billion a year-- I know these days $250 billion isn't that much, but it's a serious amount--due to intellectual property theft.

This level of counterfeiting and piracy translates to job losses, lower tax receipts, and greater trade deficits. Public health and safety is threatened by inferior and dangerous knockoffs, such as exploding batteries, toxic pharmaceuticals, and sawdust brake pads.

In response to the grave threat of intellectual property theft and the threat that poses to the U.S. economy and the health and safety of our citizens, the House passed the PRO-IP bill.

The bill strengthened our civil and criminal laws in ways that attack the organizational structures intellectual property thieves use and that reduce the economic incentives thieves have to engage in commercial-scale counterfeiting and piracy. It devoted more resources to investigating and prosecuting intellectual property crimes and to working with other governments to improve intellectual property enforcement aboard.

Following our lead, the Senate passed S. 3325, which provides many of the same reforms called for in H.R. 4279.

I just want to close by thanking very much Chairman Conyers, his staff, the subcommittee staff for all the work they put into it, the minority staff, Mr. Coble, Mr. Smith, who is a great partnership, and for working to develop and pass this bill, and to thank Senator Leahy and his staff for their efforts and urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.