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Washington - Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced the Enhancing Federal Obscenity Reporting and Copyright Enforcement Act of 2003 (the EnFORCE Act). The EnFORCE Act makes three sets of changes intended to improve enforcement
of our nation's copyright laws by fostering flexibility, certainty, and accountability.
"The music industry is now responding to concerns by developing new products and distribution channels," said Hatch. "The EnFORCE Act will ensure that federal law allows the music industry to provide consumers with innovative products and services."
"The EnFORCE Act also provides additional tools to protect our children from perverts and pedophiles on the Internet," continued Hatch. "Our children are our most precious and vulnerable citizens and Congress must continue to do everything in its power to protect them from predators."
Provisions of the EnFORCE Act include:
• Expanding an existing antitrust exemption so that record companies and music publishers can negotiate royalty rates and bring to consumers innovative new forms of physical phonorecords, like DVD audio disks;
• Clarifying procedures for calculating statutory damages in copyright infringement actions; and
• Providing the Department of Justice with enhanced enforcement capabilities and additional reporting requirements that will facilitate both federal enforcement and Congressional oversight of federal
criminal laws relating to intellectual property and sexual exploitation of children.
The bipartisan EnFORCE Act was co-sponsored by Senators Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and John Cornyn (R-TX).
Senator Hatch's statement to the United States Senate follows:
Statement of Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah)
Before the United States Senate on The Enhancing Federal Obscenity Reporting and Copyright Enforcement Act of 2003
November 22, 2003
Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Enhancing Federal Obscenity Reporting and Copyright Enforcement Act of 2003 (the EnFORCE Act).
This bill makes three sets of narrow, but important, changes that will build greater flexibility and accountability into our system of intellectual property laws.
First, the EnFORCE Act will expand an existing antitrust exemption to conform the law to market realities. Today, an antitrust exemption in the Copyright Act gives record companies and music publishers the flexibility they need to negotiate mechanical royalty rates in the
rapidly evolving market for legal music downloading. These parties now need the same flexibility to ensure that they can negotiate royalties associated with innovative forms of physical phonorecords, like enhanced compact disks and DVD audio disks.
Mr. President, the music industry has sometimes been criticized for being too slow to adapt its business models to new technologies. The industry is now responding to such concerns by developing new products
and new distribution channels. The EnFORCE Act will ensure that federal law allows the music industry to provide consumers with these innovative products and services.
Second, the EnFORCE Act will also resolve two narrow issues relating to statutory damages in copyright infringement litigation. Some accused infringers have tried to avoid liability for statutory damages by
challenging the accuracy of the information in copyright registrations;
This bill clarifies that courts should resolve such challenges by applying the existing judicial doctrine of
fraud-on-the-Copyright-Office. In other cases, disputes have arisen about how many "works" have been infringed for purposes of computing statutory damages. These disputes are important for the music industry, which has received inconsistent adjudications about whether an album consisting of ten songs counts as one or ten works for statutory-damages computation. The bill gives courts discretion to conform the law of statutory damages to changing market realities.
Third, and finally, the EnFORCE Act will also enhance both the enforcement and oversight of federal intellectual property law. The bill authorizes appropriations to ensure that all Department of Justice
units that investigate intellectual property crimes have the support of at least one agent specifically trained in the investigation of such crimes. The bill also requires the Department of Justice to report to
Congress detailed information about the scope of its efforts to investigate and prosecute crimes involving the sexual exploitation of minors or intellectual property.
Mr. President, for the above reasons, I urge my colleagues to support the Enhancing Federal Obscenity Reporting and Copyright Enforcement Act of 2003. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate
and the affected public to ensure that this bill achieves its important objectives.
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I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting pretty sick and tired of all these bills that have a title saying one thing, but doing something entirely different.
Let's try this for starters:
"These disputes are important for the music industry, which has received inconsistent adjudications about whether an album consisting of ten songs counts as one or ten works for statutory-damages computation. The bill gives courts discretion to conform the law of statutory damages to changing market realities."
What the hell is this supposed to mean? Oh. I get it. It now depends how much you pay the judge.
And don't worry about antitrust. Not even an issue any more is it? Now that ALL the labels are foreign owned, our laws apparently don't apply to them any longer. Which is apparently why we're writing special laws just for the monopolistic bastards' benefit.
ENFORCE = Extremely Nervous Fools Offend Regular Consumers Everywhere
George D. Ziemann
carla60626
airider
CodeWarrior
surfside6
