[extropy-chat] US Justice Dept. wants new antipiracy powers

[Amara Graps]

>From boing-boing  (http://www.boingboing.net/) : 

"At a press conference in Los Angeles today, Atttorney General John
Ashcroft announced an expansion of Department of Justice powers to
combat intellectual property theft. Some say the approach appears to be
modeled after the war on drugs."

and then to the source:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5406654.html

Justice Dept. wants new antipiracy powers
By Declan McCullagh CNET News.com October 12, 2004, 4:42 PM PT

  The U.S. Justice Department recommended a sweeping transformation of the
nation's intellectual-property laws, saying peer-to-peer piracy is a
"widespread" problem that can be addressed only through more spending,
more FBI agents and more power for prosecutors.

In an extensive report released Tuesday, senior department officials
endorsed a pair of controversial copyright bills strongly favored by the
entertainment industry that would criminalize "passive sharing" on
file-swapping networks and permit lawsuits against companies that sell
products that "induce" copyright infringement.

"The department is prepared to build the strongest, most aggressive
legal assault against intellectual-property crime in our nation's
history," Attorney General John Ashcroft, who created the task force in
March, said at a press conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon.

In an example of the Justice Department's hunger for new
copyright-related police powers, the report asks Congress to introduce
legislation that would permit wiretaps to be used in investigating
serious intellectual-property offenses and that would create a new crime
of the "importation" of pirated products. It also suggests stationing
FBI agents and prosecutors in Hong Kong and Budapest, Hungary, to aid
local officials and "develop training programs on intellectual-property
enforcement."

[see article for more]