HR 4279, A Whack at Fair Use?

A fellow traveler over at profy has concerns about HR 4279. The Bill clearly raises the fines for trademark infringement. ThirdPipe has not been able to find the reference to $30k per TRACK as a basis for a fine. According to profy –

What makes HR 4279 problematic is that it is a bill sponsored and passed before its time. You can’t mete out punishment without first clearly defining the crime. It is also problematic in the amount they determined the fine for illegal files to be - a whopping $30,000 per track. That’s right - per track. That works out to $360,000 for a 12 track CD!

Why is $30,000 per track so reprehensible? Because this law has been enacted before we have hashed out fair use definitions and determined what illegal tracks consist of. It is putting the cart before the horse. As it stands now, the RIAA and the legislators who support the RIAA want copies of music you already own to be considered illegal, among other unreasonable demands. That means that according to this law, if you rip a CD to your computer then lose or damage the CD, that ripped CD could be considered illegal, even though you paid for it.

But the profy blog has one good point –

Until or unless we define illegal use in such a way that takes into consideration fair use of copyrighted material you already own this is a bad law. We have to define illegal use and illegal files clearly, and we have not yet begun to do so. This law could create an avalanche of harm for the average person who is under the (in my opinion correct) assumption that they should be able to use the copyrighted material the bought with their own money however they see fit, not to mention its possible impact to the small business and individual online.

The problem with this bill is that it muddles the definition of Fair Use as it has classically been defined. The second problem is one the RIAA crowd has not thought thru. As the laws get stricter, and technology gets cheaper and easier to produce content the big production houses are pushing the user base away from copyrighted materials. This helps the UGC crowd as it raises acceptance this type of material.

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