FC: Janet Reno says music piracy is theft, links to organized crime

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Some background -- DoJ files amicus brief opposing Napster: 
  http://www.politechbot.com/p-01365.html
Clinton signs No Electronic Theft act:
  http://www.time.com/time/digital/daily/0,2822,12892,00.html
NET act sentencing guidelines:
  http://www.eff.org/pub/Intellectual_property/NET_Act_sentencing/
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http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,20985,00.html

The Industry Standard 
December 25, 2000 

The Threat of Digital Theft

Intellectual property theft is faster, costlier and more dangerous
than ever.
   
   By Janet Reno
                                                                         
   In December, the White House released an interagency International
   Crime Threat Assessment, a big report with some stark conclusions:
   Intellectual property theft today is faster, costlier and more
   dangerous than ever. These trends will continue unless law enforcement
   and rights holders recognize that the threat crosses national borders
   - and resolve to work collectively to defeat the increasingly more
   organized efforts of the perpetrators.
   
   Products and methods protected by intellectual property laws are
   critical to our national defense and economic security. Intellectual
   property laws provide core protections for this economic engine.
   Anti-counterfeiting laws also safeguard the reliability of products
   that affect public health and safety, covering everything from
   aircraft parts to infant formula.
   
   But economic espionage - unlawful practices engaged in by private
   companies and sometimes by foreign governments aimed at stealing
   assets such as formulas, blueprints or marketing strategies - is on
   the rise. The FBI estimates that a significant number of countries are
   targeting U.S. firms, with high-tech companies the most frequent
   targets. For developing nations, the stakes are higher still.
   Countries that fail to protect intellectual property will witness the
   exodus of their best talent, a loss of jobs and tax revenues, a
   nutrient environment for official corruption and an increase in crimes
   financed by intellectual property theft. With so much at stake, law
   enforcement officials are deeply disturbed by an explosion in piracy
   and counterfeiting.
   
   Among our concerns are the following:
   
     Criminal organizations appear to be using the proceeds of
   IP-infringing products to facilitate a variety of enterprises,
   including guns, drugs, pornography and even terrorism. Invariably,
   when there is intellectual property crime, there is tax evasion and
   money laundering.
   
     The Internet, while promoting knowledge-based industries and
   commerce, also makes it easier to steal, produce and distribute
   merchandise such as software, music, films, books and games. With the
   click of a mouse, identical copies can be reproduced and transferred
   immediately, cheaply, surreptitiously and repeatedly. (See
   www.cybercrime.gov.)
   
     Small businesses - the lifeblood of modern economies - can be
   devastated by organized, commercial-scale piracy. In one Latin
   American country, local music producers were nearly wiped out recently
   by music pirates using well-organized transborder operations to
   saturate the country with illegal domestic and foreign music products.
   
   To meet this challenge, in July 1999 the Justice Department, FBI and
   Customs Service announced the first interagency effort to boost
   domestic enforcement of our IP laws. Officials in Boston, Los Angeles,
   Miami, New Jersey, New York and San Francisco/San Jose agreed to make
   such cases a priority, share information and work closely with
   industry to encourage quality referrals.
   
   As a result, we are beginning to see more promising prosecutions,
   including the first convictions under the No Electronic Theft Act, a
   1997 law that punishes the latest wave of piracy on the Internet.
   Further, we are pleased the U.S. Sentencing Commission toughened the
   guideline range for criminal counterfeiting and piracy offenses.
   
   To combat transborder intellectual-property crime, law enforcement in
   the U.S. and around the world must be trained and equipped, and our
   efforts linked across national and virtual borders, to meet the
   challenge of highly organized groups trafficking in these products. We
   need to continue efforts within the G8, the EU and countries in Asia
   and Latin America to elevate these crimes on their agendas.
   
   Our citizens, policymakers and law enforcement experts must understand
   that stealing intellectual property will be prosecuted for what it is:
   not an exotic, hard-to-prosecute diversion or hobby, but theft, pure
   and simple.
   _________________________________________________________________
   
   Janet Reno is the attorney general of the United States. See the full
   report at

www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/NSC/html/documents/pub45270/pub45270index.html



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