[Infowarrior] - Has Congress Backdoored In 'Attempted Infringement' As A Crime?

[Richard Forno]

Has Congress Backdoored In 'Attempted Copyright Infringement' As A Crime?
from the uh-oh... dept

Last year, when Alberto Gonzales was under pressure from Congress, he
suddenly started spending a lot of time talking about stricter copyright
laws. Perhaps it gave him a distraction from repeating "I do not recall" all
day in front of Congress. His proposal was basically a laundry list of the
entertainment industry's desired changes to copyright law, including making
"attempted infringement" a crime. Despite the fact that copyright law is
pretty clear that an actual violation needs to happen first, this would
shift the standard so that if you just attempted to infringe, you could be
found guilty of the full infringement itself. While Gonzales' efforts went
nowhere, William Patry is pointing out that Congress may have backdoored in
this "attempted" clause late last year through the Orwellianly-titled
Criminal Code Modernization and Simplification Act. In that act, it notes
that: "Unless otherwise provided by law, whoever attempts to commit an
offense shall be punished as is provided for the completed offense." When it
comes to copyright law in the bill, no exception is provided. Patry points
to the recent story of the guy sent to jail for just clicking a link to give
you a suggestion of where this new law will allow complaints to go. It's not
a pretty picture.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20080324/152810634.shtml