NEW HILL CAUCUS TO PUSH INTERNATIONAL ANTIPIRACY ENFORCEMENT
A new congressional caucus opposed to international piracy of intellectual property will “look like a laser beam” at the subject, one of its co-chmn. said at a news conference Tues. House Internet Caucus Co-Chmn. Goodlatte (R-Va.) was joined by Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking Democrat Biden (Del.), Sen. Smith (R-Ore.) and Rep. Schiff (D-Cal.) in introducing the 59-member caucus. After the conference, Schiff, whose district includes many TV and movie studios and recording labels, told us he was preparing legislation targeting unauthorized file sharing. Piracy “is a big deal,” Biden said, and “the question remains, ‘What are we going to be able to do about what is in essence a theft of American assets?'”
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Biden said he hoped the caucus would prompt “civil discourse” on piracy. He said that with Internet file sharing, people seemed to believe that “if technology is able to be used, you should be able to use it unfettered,” but compared with that the right to use a gun just because it was loaded. Goodlatte said the caucus would closely examine online file sharing, but wouldn’t address “the overarching issue of fair use,” U.S. copyright law or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The focus of the new caucus is to use appropriate Hill committees to prod the Administration and foreign govts. to crack down on piracy, offline and online. Smith said the State Dept., Dept. of Justice and the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR’s) office would be among those receiving pressure. (Officials of all 3 agencies were present at a U.S. Capitol news conference, and a USTR official there praised the caucus.) Biden said the caucus could press for appropriations to foreign govts.: “Countries may have the will [to enforce antipiracy laws] but not the ability.”
Sponsoring or backing bills apparently won’t be part of the caucus’s role, although many members have been involved in legislative efforts on intellectual property in the past. Schiff in the last Congress considered introducing a bill similar to that of then-Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. Hollings (D-S.C.) pushing for digital rights management (DRM) solutions. Schiff told us Tues. that he’s evaluating a measure he hoped to introduce later this Congress on piracy and Internet file-sharing. He told us the proposed legislation wouldn’t press for DRM but would take “an entirely new approach,” but he wasn’t ready to discuss it publicly.
Several members active in intellectual property issues belong to the new caucus, including House Judiciary Committee ranking Democrat Conyers (Mich.); Courts, Internet & Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chmn. Smith (R-Tex.) and Goodlatte, who is vice chmn. of the subcommittee; Senate Judiciary Committee ranking Democrat Leahy (Vt.), House Govt. Reform Committee ranking Democrat Waxman (Cal.) and Sens. Allen (R-Va.), Boxer (D-Cal.) and Feinstein (D-Cal.).
Rep. Lofgren (D-Cal.) also belongs; she’s the author of legislation that would protect fair use rights of digital content, but always has insisted she opposes piracy. Missing from the list is House Internet Caucus Co-Chmn. Boucher (D- Va.), who like Lofgren has a fair use bill but says he opposes piracy. Others not members include Senate Judiciary Committee Chmn. Hatch (R-Utah) and House Judiciary Committee Chmn. Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), House Judiciary Courts Subcommittee ranking Democrat Berman (D-Cal.) and Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. McCain (R-Ariz.) and ranking Democrat Hollings. Both Berman and Hollings in the last Congress introduced bills targeting piracy, and Berman has another one in this Congress that is being folded in part into a separate bill by Smith.
The caucus’s first action was to issue a 2003 International Piracy Watch List of 5 countries it would monitor: (1) Brazil, which USTR said produced the largest losses to piracy in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. govt. is reviewing whether Brazil still qualifies for preferential trade duties due to lax intellectual property enforcement. (2) China, which has revised intellectual property laws but according to USTR isn’t enforcing them. More than 90% of intellectual property goods in China are estimated to be counterfeit. (3) Pakistan, which has seen piracy production double in the last year, according to the USTR. One caucus member, Rep. Berkley (D-Nev.), said intelligence briefings suggested terrorists were funded in part by piracy. (4) Russia, which the USTR said had weak protection and growing piracy. Russia, like Brazil, also is under review to ascertain whether its trade preferences could be maintained given its piracy problems. (5) Taiwan, which has bolstered its enforcement capacity but hasn’t produced results, the USTR said.
The new caucus was backed not only by ESA but by the RIAA, MPAA, Business Software Alliance and the Assn. of American Publishers.