April 2, 2004

Who will determine the value of copyrighted content?

The pending legislation (HR 4077: the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act [pdf]) that I was discussing yesterday is intended to punish internet users, who make $1,000 in copyrighted materials publicly accessible in a shared folder, with prison terms of up to three years and fines of up to $250,000:
(2) infringes a copyright willfully by the reproduction or distribution, including by the offering for distribution to the public by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000, or

(3) infringes a copyright by the knowing distribution, including by the offering for distribution to the public by electronic means, with reckless disregard of the risk of further infringement, during any 180-day period, of
(A) 1,000 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works,
(B) 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works with a total retail value of more than $10,000, or
(C) 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted pre-release works...
(2) RETAIL VALUE: The 'retail value' of a copyrighted work is the retail price of that work in the market in which it is sold. In the case of an infringement of a copyright by distribution, if the retail price does not adequately reflect the economic value of the infringement, then the retail value may be determined using other factors, including but not limited to suggested retail price, wholesale price, replacement cost of the item, licensing, or distribution-related fees.
If we were to value a song by the retail prices set at Wal-Mart, who is is now selling songs at $0.88 per mp3 then you could safely have 1,135 songs in your share folder under section (2); however, it seems that section (3)(A) sets a hard cap to the number of songs that you could offer at 999.

Does anyone else have any thoughts -- trying to parse the language of this act makes my eyes and brain hurt.


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