New Bill Could Aid Music File Sharers

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The U.S Senate has introduced a new bill that could potentially curtail the RIAA's recent offensive against individuals who share music files over the Internet. If the bill is sucessfully passed, it would more than likely put an end to the flood of subpoenas the RIAA's offensive has put out to ISPs in an attempt to gain access to the identities of their customers who use P2P networks for music sharing.

Introduced by Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), the "Consumers, Schools, and Libraries Digital Rights Management (DRM) Awareness Act of 2003" would prevent copyright holders from compelling an ISP to disclose the names or other identifying information of its subscribers prior to the filing of a suit -- a tactic that critics and civil libertarians decry as unconstitutional and an invasion of privacy .
This issue has been hashed out in court and, in fact, is being reviewed again as Verizon argues before a panel of federal judges that the lower-court decision that required it to turn over its customers' names was incorrect.

The full report:
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22314.html

GHoosdum

Sweet. I hope that this country's elected officials uphold the will of the people and pass this bill... unless the officials ar in the pocksets of the RIAA... because as the artists themselves show, once you're in the pocket you don't escape...

FormFactor

schweetnesh!