The Senate passed an identical Act in February, meaning that
the legislation now needs only the approval of the President before
it becomes law.
The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act 2005 is a
consolidation of several draft copyright bills that were put
forward over the course of the 2004 congressional session.
These included the Induce Act (otherwise known as the Inducing
Infringement of Copyrights Act), which proposed to make anyone who
"intentionally induces any violation" of
US
copyright
law liable for that violation, and the Piracy Deterrence and
Education Act, which aimed: to criminalise file-sharing; to demand
funding for the Justice Department to initiate an internet use
education programme; and to give the
FBI powers to create
an anti-piracy program.
But legislators were forced to tone down the proposals in the
light of vigorous objections from consumer groups and civil
liberties organisations, who saw the proposals as being so broad as
to attack any service or device that had the potential to be used
for copyright infringement, and as forcing the taxpayer to fund the
legal battles of the entertainment industry.
Instead, the Act makes a number of small amendments to
existing copyright law and targets those involved in the
"camcording" of motion pictures for unauthorised
redistribution.
Such individuals face a fine or three years in prison for a
first offence or a fine or up to six years in prison for a second
or subsequent offence.
People who distribute pre-release versions of copyrighted
material, such as films or music, are also targeted, and could face
up to ten years in prison.
The Act will also allow devices such as ClearPlay's
DVD
player – which permits parents to edit
inappropriate material out of films – to operate without breaching
the law.
Congress appears to have put the more controversial aspects of
last year's draft copyright bills on hold, pending the Supreme
Court's decision in an appeal by the entertainment industry against
a ruling that companies providing
P2P file-sharing software are not liable
for copyright infringement by users of the software. The decision
is expected in June.
