Net pirates will face stiffer punishment
Declan McCullagh writes in C|Net News:
Internet pirates with prerelease movies in their shared folders will face stiffer federal penalties starting Monday.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission on Wednesday approved an emergency set of rules that would boost prison sentences by roughly 40 percent for people convicted of peer-to-peer infringement of copyright works "being prepared for commercial distribution."
The changes also say judges may "estimate" the number of files shared for purposes of determining the appropriate fine and sentence. Larger numbers typically yield longer sentences.
This week's sentencing adjustments arose from a law that President Bush signed in April called the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act. It gave the commission 180 days to revisit its rules to make them "sufficiently stringent to deter, and adequately reflect the nature of, intellectual property rights crimes."
posted by Fergie @ 10/20/2005 05:36:00 PM
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