Abstract
A report released Tuesday by the U.S. Justice Department calls for significant changes to the nation's antipiracy laws and expresses the department's support of pending copyright legislation. In the report, the Justice Department endorses the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act as well as the Induce Act, both of which are strongly supported by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. Opponents of the bills include P2P companies as well as many leading technology firms, such as EarthLink, Google, Sun Microsystems, and Red Hat. The report also calls on Congress to introduce legislation that would allow wiretaps for investigations into intellectual property crimes and would create a new crime of "importation" of pirated material. The report recommends posting FBI agents in places such as Hong Kong, Budapest, and Hungary to aid efforts to limit intellectual property crimes. Comparing the report's recommendations to Prohibition, Phil Corwin, a lobbyist for Sharman Networks, which distributes the Kazaa file-sharing software, cautioned that lawmakers should "think long and hard" before establishing laws that put individual file traders on the same footing as organized crime.