The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act would create stricter IP laws, give the Justice Department the power to prosecute civil cases of copyright infringement and expand the US government’s power to seize assets in copyright cases – as well as creating a cabinet-level position to supervise the fight against intellectual property theft.
In the proposed law, which will now go before the full Senate, any restitution imposed by the lawsuits would be given to the intellectual property owners as compensation. After complaints from some consumer groups and privacy advocates, the committee revised other sections in the bill to limit the use of information seized during an infringement investigation.
The bill’s language was altered to ensure that “confidential, private, proprietary or privileged information contained in such records is not improperly disclosed or used.”
The bill was approved by a 14-4 majority of the bi-partisan committee. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who introduced the bill, said: “We all know that intellectual property makes up some of the most valuable, and most vulnerable, property we have."
“We need to do more to protect it from theft and abuse if we hope to continue being a world leader in innovation,” he said.
The legislation was supported by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America which are among the industry groups pushing hardest for a crackdown on digital piracy. It was also backed by the US Chamber of Commerce, the Property Rights Alliance and the International Trademark Association.
Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland said that IP theft had cost the US at least $200 billion and an estimated 750,000 jobs.
He added: “I believe the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008 will provide the teeth our law enforcement agencies need to clamp down on those that engage in this illegal conduct.”
The bill, though, was not universally welcomed. In a letter to senators, a coalition of groups including the American Library Association, the Consumers Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge, said that the bill “would be an enormous gift of federal resources to large copyright owners with no demonstration that the copyright owners are having difficulties enforcing their own rights."
“Movie and television producers, software publishers, music publishers, and print publishers all have their own enforcement programs. There is absolutely no reason for the federal government to assume this private enforcement role,” said the letter.
