U.S. lawmakers have asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to go after Internet users who download unauthorized songs and other copyrighted material, raising the possibility of jail time for digital-music fans.

In a July 25 letter released late Thursday, some 19 lawmakers from both sides of the aisle asked Ashcroft to prosecute "peer-to-peer" networks like Kazaa and Morpheus and the users who swap digital songs, video clips and other files without permission from artists or their record labels.

The Justice Department should also devote more resources to policing online copyrights, the lawmakers said in their letter.

"Such an effort is increasingly important as online theft of our nation's creative works is a growing threat to our culture and economy," the letter said.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Of course our "friend" Hilary Rosen had comments, "We appreciate and applaud the leadership of Congressman Smith, Senator Biden and many other leading lawmakers on this important issue for U.S. copyright industries. There should be no doubt: mass copying off the Internet is illegal and deserves to be a high priority for the Department of Justice By any count, the level of piracy on the illegal peer-to-peer networks is staggering. It poses a real threat to the vitality and economic growth of a number of leading U.S. industries and ultimately hurts consumers by undermining the creators’ incentive to bring new works to the market."

A staffer for Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith, who signed the letter, said that lawmakers did not want FBI agents to arrest casual users but instead go after operators of network "nodes" that handle much of the traffic.

Among those signing the letter were: Delaware Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden; Wisconsin Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner; Virginia Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott; Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers; North Carolina Republican Rep. Howard Coble; and California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Lets see, 19 members of Congress out of 535, that comes out to approx 3 1/2% of the members of Congress. Now that's what I call major support.

We are trying to get a copy of the letter, to find out who the rest of the signers are, we will let you know as we find out more. In the meantime, the people who are known to have signed the letter and the contributions they received are listed below. (from Opensecrets.org)

Joseph Biden-$39,324
James Sensenbrenner-TV/Movies/Music $21,263
Bobby Scott- No listed contribs from TV/Movies/Music
John Conyers- TV/Movies/Music $26,000
Howard Coble TV/Movies/Music $33,483
Dianne Feinstein TV/Movies/Music $214,638
Lamar Smith- TV/Movies/Music $5,892

Wow, that Dianne Feinstein is quite the expensive whore eh? She works for ten-twenty times the money of the others. I wonder how far I would get with her, for just $100

lol@dee -you crack me up!!
""Fuck em." - Come get me I'll be on Bearshare for the rest of the weekend."
hahahha

of course Feinstein is gonna get paid more.. California

Wonder how many of the other 19 that signed that got some type of "support".. probably all 19, and the other 96 1/2% probably didn't get

Svensta lol

constitution provides for intellectual privacy laws in order to promote creativity......well perhaps these draconian copyrightlaws actually stifle creativity and benefit only a small number of monopolistic industries

If everbody was sent to jail for illegal copying of music, whether it be a cassette of a cd you've bought, a video taped off the tv, or mp3 files off the internet,ther would be nobody left to act as jailer.Lets face it hte whole 'world' as we know it today is a 'Den Of Eniquity' and is really a massive jail already!.I mean..the only way to be really free is to launch yourself into space where there is nobody to act upon or be acted upon!..If Freedom means Free-Will.We are all forced to comply by laws that enslave thge very people who make them!

sorry fot the typo errors

P2P is wrong. It's piracy and that is stealing. No matter how much you want to deny it.

So is listening to the radio, humming a song, (nobody gets paid for those) and holy moly, humming could be a public performance. So could allowing anyone to hear your radio while driving down the street. Or playing your stereo at a party. Better get those licenses. Shit just lock up all the music. We'll make own!