By Declan McCullagh, 27 September 2002 16:00
NEWS Campaigners hoping to eliminate peer-to-peer piracy by force have hit back at their critics, accusing them of using scare tactics. Supporters of a US bill before Congress which sets out to protect the rights of copyright owners - such as artists and distributors - say their argument is being misrepresented by opponents of the bill. The bill's proponents say copyright holders should have the right to access networks trading in illegally downloaded material and take direct action against them but deny accusations of supporting 'vigilantism' or 'legalised hacking'. During the first congressional hearing on the P2P Piracy Prevention bill, US senator Howard Berman, said: "There have been some truly outrageous attacks. I never expected that anyone would challenge the underlying premise of the bill, namely that copyrighted owners should be able to use reasonable, limited measures to thwart peer-to-peer piracy." If the bill becomes law, copyright holders would have the right to disable, interfere with, block, or otherwise impair a peer-to-peer node that they suspect is distributing their intellectual property without permission. Criticism of the bill has centred around two arguments: Nowhere does it specify what kind of technological attacks would be permissible, nor does it provide sufficient recourse if a computer is unreasonably targeted. Hilary Rosen, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, which effectively ran Napster out of town, said: "There has been a lot of misinformation about this bill. Some have characterised it as allowing copyright vigilantism or letting record companies and movie studios hack into people's computers and crash networks. These irresponsible descriptions at best reveal a misunderstanding of the text and purpose of the bill, and at worst purposely cloud the real issues." Declan McCullagh writes for News.com.
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