Senators seek consensus on IICA

Senate Republican leader Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., Democratic leader Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah and the committee's senior Democrat Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. have written a letter to Register of Copyrights Mary Beth Peters "to schedule a series of high-level meetings with copyright owners like the record companies and movie studios, people who run peer-to-peer networks and technology companies in an effort to build a consensus for the legislation." [Hollywood Reporter]

We do recognize, however, that some technology companies are concerned that claims for intentional inducement of infringement might be misused frivolously against entities who distribute legitimate copying devices or programs such as computers, CD-burners, personal video recorders, e-mail services, etc. We are open to any constructive input on how Congress can best frame a technology-neutral law directed at a small set of bad actors while protecting our legitimate technology industries from frivolous litigation.

There is little dispute that entities intentionally encouraging and promoting widespread infringement should be held secondarily liable for the infringement they intend to induce. The imposition of such liability is particularly appropriate given that much file-sharing software automates the redistribution of infringing files so effectively that people making hundreds of works available for distribution to millions of persons around the globe can testify that they had no idea that they were engaged in the massive, global redistribution of those protected works.

[W]e remain open to other approaches ... to attempt to achieve consensus proposals [by Sept. 7].