Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release
California Bill Backed by Hollywood Attacks Internet Privacy
Electronic Frontier Foundation Opposes Ineffective, Damaging Legislation
For Immediate Release: Wednesday, March 17, 2004
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today asked Californians to contact their legislative representatives in opposition to a pair of misguided anti-piracy bills that dramatically impact Internet users' rights to privacy and anonymity.
California Assembly Bill 2735 and Senate Bill 1506 would require anyone who knowingly disseminates commercial recorded or audiovisual material over the Internet to mark it with his or her name and address or face a possible one-year prison sentence.
"These California anti-anonymity bills would force everyone - including children - to put their real names and addresses on all the files they trade, regardless of whether the files actually infringe copyrights," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "Because the bills require Internet users to post personally identifying information, they fly directly in the face of policy goals and laws that prevent identity theft and spam and protect children and domestic violence victims."
For example, the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) forbids collection of personally identifiable information from children online without parental consent.
"This bill creates criminal liability for sharing a single song or even a portion of a song or movie, but leaves no space for fair uses such as commentary, criticism, parody or educational uses of works," said EFF Activist Ren Bucholz. "This bill is supposed to stop piracy, but it may be the most ineffective and harmful method yet proposed."
Well, more anywhere else California politians are under the thumb of the media industries (expecially Hollywood) so it does not come as a total surprise.
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Since its inception almost 30 years ago, the internet has been transformed from a primitive device for sharing thoughts and ideas, into a massive network where people pay to connect and read advertisements they don't want, while calling each other "asshats".
pretty soon is going to be against the law to bring in your own drinks and food to the theater. after you bought VIP Tickets to the movie...
I guess we can expect kiddies and teens carted off to jail in the future?California Assembly Bill 2735 and Senate Bill 1506 would require anyone who knowingly disseminates commercial recorded or audiovisual material over the Internet to mark it with his or her name and address or face a possible one-year prison sentence.
Shouldn't this be a civil offense not a criminal one?
If someone downloads a file are they supposed to share the details before uploading? I agree this sentence is a bit too much, one year is a long time for someone to spend behind bars for an act that has not even been proven to adversely affect anyone.
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