Senator Questions RIAA Crusade

WASHINGTON -- The music labels may have to find another way of getting the names of suspected file-swappers than wresting them from ISPs.

Invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to get customer names from ISPs doesn't even require a judge's supervision, notes Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. He suggests copyright-holders and ISPs come up with another way to protect songs and movies online.

The comment comes a day after the music industry announced lawsuits against 261 U.S. residents accused of uploading thousands of songs.

Broad Powers

Hatch says he agrees with many of the concerns raised in a Tuesday committee hearing by William Barr, general counsel of Verizon Communications. The ISP has fought subpoenas from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as the music labels sought out copyright violations. After losing two court rulings, Verizon handed over the names of four customers accused of heavy song swapping over peer-to-peer networks.

The latitude under the DMCA is so broad, government prosecutors don't have the same freedom to subpoena criminals that the RIAA has to subpoena suspected copyright violators, Barr told the Senate Judiciary committee. Any copyright holder can request DMCA subpoenas through a court clerk and without a hearing before a judge.

Without a judge to oversee the subpoena, nothing stops stalkers or pedophiles from claiming to be copyright-holders and getting the names of Internet users, Barr says.

"Given the sweeping nature of this power, deputizing commercially interested individuals to go out and do this kind of thing, abuses aren't just possible, abuses are inevitable," Barr told the committee.

After Barr's testimony, Hatch asked for bimonthly updates over the next six months from the RIAA, Verizon, and other interested groups on whether the subpoenas are being abused and what alternatives Congress might consider. The issue has not "ripened enough" for Congress to decide whether the DMCA went too far, Hatch added.

Compromise Urged

But Hatch also said he agrees with much of Barr's testimony.

"We need both of your ideas on how to solve this, because much of what (Barr) says I agree with," he told RIAA and Verizon representatives. "But the RIAA should not have to put up with wholesale pirating of its content."

Both sides have good points, and Congress should be able to come up with a compromise solution to protect copyrights, Hatch added.

"I have no doubt that (the DMCA) is not perfect," Hatch said. "On the other hand, I think we may be able to resolve some of these problems in a way that would be mutually beneficial."

RIAA President Cary Sherman and Marybeth Peters, register of copyrights of the U.S. Copyright Office, both defend the DMCA subpoenas.

Peters calls the DMCA provision "appropriate and constitutional," and Sherman says the subpoenas are part of a compromise when the DMCA was drafted, intended to protect ISPs from being sued by copyright-holders.

RIAA Defends Tactic

Peer-to-peer users should not expect privacy because they commit "privacy suicide" by opening their hard drives to millions of other users, Sherman says.

"No one has a privacy right to engage on copyright infringement on the Internet, and illegally sharing or downloading copyrighted music online is not a form of free speech or civil disobedience protected by the First Amendment," he says.

On Monday, the RIAA announced it had filed copyright infringement lawsuits against 261 U.S. residents, each suspected of uploading an average of 1000 songs to peer-to-peer sites.

On Tuesday, the RIAA announced it has settled with the first of those 261 accused pirates. It reached a deal with the mother of a 12-year-old girl who had allegedly offered more than 1000 songs to a peer-to-peer network from the family's PC. The New York woman agreed to pay the RIAA $2000, according to Amy Weiss, an RIAA spokesperson.