FC: Look out, pirates: RIAA wants to hack your PC

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Text of original RIAA amendment to the anti-terrorism bill, which RIAA says 
it no longer supports:
http://www.wartimeliberty.com/article.pl?sid=01/10/14/1756248

---

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47552,00.html

   RIAA Wants to Hack Your PC
   By Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)
   2:00 a.m. Oct. 15, 2001 PDT

   WASHINGTON -- Look out, music pirates: The recording industry wants
   the right to hack into your computer and delete your stolen MP3s.

   It's no joke. Lobbyists for the Recording Industry Association of
   America (RIAA) tried to glue this hacking-authorization amendment onto
   a mammoth anti-terrorism bill that Congress approved last week.

   An RIAA-drafted amendment, according to a draft obtained by Wired News,
   would immunize all copyright holders -- including the movie and e-book
   industry -- for any data losses caused by their hacking efforts or
   other computer intrusions "that are reasonably intended to impede or
   prevent" electronic piracy.

   In an interview Friday, RIAA lobbyist Mitch Glazier said that his
   association has abandoned plans to insert that amendment into
   anti-terrorism bills -- and instead is supporting a revised amendment
   that takes a more modest approach.

   "It will not be some special exception for copyright owners," Glazier
   said. "It will be a general fix to bring back current law." Glazier is
   the RIAA's senior vice president of government relations and a former
   House aide.

   The RIAA's interest in the USA Act, an anti-terrorism bill that the
   Senate and the House approved last week, grew out of an obscure part
   of it called section 815. Called the "Deterrence and Prevention of
   Cyberterrorism" section, it says that anyone who breaks into computers
   and causes damage "aggregating at least $5,000 in value" in a one-year
   period would be committing a crime.

   If the current version of the USA Act becomes law, the RIAA believes,
   it could outlaw attempts by copyright holders to break into and
   disable pirate FTP or websites or peer-to-peer networks. Because the
   bill covers aggregate damage, it could bar anti-piracy efforts that
   cause little harm to individual users, but meet the $5,000 threshold
   when combined.

   [...]




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------