Will Politicians Never Learn?!

Newt Gingrich just got hit with a copyright infringement suit by the members of the band Survivor for his use of the song "Eye of the Tiger" on the campaign trail. This happens every four years. I know politicians are known for forgetting promises, but can't they get a single lawyer on their team who can remember to protect them from getting sued? This is just silly that it keeps happening.

Original Story at CBS

Copyright Cleanup Clarification and Corrections Act (S.3689) Heads to President

US Copyright law took a small step toward catching up with technology this month when Congress passed a bill aimed at refining and clarifying certain existing aspects of the Copyright Act. The Senate version of the bill (S.3689) passed on November 19 and is awaiting action by President Obama.

The bill addresses several technical loose ends and aims at modernization. A small step toward the latter is accomplished by removing language from Section 512(c) that required the Copyright Office to maintain both electronic and paper records of designated copyright agents for DMCA takedown notices. Under the new legislation, records will be maintained solely in electronic format; clearly an effort to cut costs associated with maintenance of the list.

Summarizing Other Provisions...

Substantial clarity is brought to Section 201(d)(2), by adding language expressly stating the right of a copyright licensee to transfer or further license that right, absent written, contractual proscriptions by the prior licensor.

The CCCC Act's provision most likely to garner attention down the road from the general public expands Section 303(b) to state that the exemption for publication of works on phonorecord prior to 1978 includes not only musical works, but any "any musical work, dramatic work, or literary work." This clarification will make clear the duration of copyrights associated with countless works approaching the end of their copyright term over the next several decades.

Amendments to Section 803 expressly subject determinations of the Copyright Royalty Judges to judicial review and approval of the Librarian of Congress. The Royalty Board, created in 2004, currently "may issue regulations to carry out their functions under [The Copyright Act]."

There is no indication that Obama will delay passage of the bill.

Designing a Downfall

On August 5, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) introduced Senate Bill S.3728, which would amend U.S. copyright law to allow limited, three-year protection for new and original fashion designs. The legislation would prohibit “deliberate copies” that are “substantially identical to protected designs.” The bill is clearly a corporate handout that will result in great windfalls to the large designers – if they can build fashion trends without mass quantities and ready availability of their styles – and will squeeze the “middle class” of United States clothing manufacturers into financial ruin.

The proposed Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act will give designers essentially a 3-year monopoly on their styles. Contrary to the purported benefit to these major designers, the proposed law would serve only to diminish the market for their clothes and hurt the US economy because the clothes won't become widespread so as to start a major fashion trend without people having access to the lower-priced versions. With the lower priced versions of the particular styles out there, more people will wear them, more people will see them and more people will want (and be willing to pay the markup for) the original, simply because they must have the prestige of that particular label. The only possible solution to this problem is that the market will then be flooded with knockoffs manufactured in other countries, such as China, where the enforcement of the IDPPPA will be more difficult. The collateral result will be that lower-priced makers in this country will entirely miss any opportunity to capitalize on the newest trends for fear of mass financial liability under this new law.

Understanding the negative impact of a shortage of the new styles and the unavailability of those styles to the mass market (i.e. those who will not spend designer prices for designer styles), the major designers will further capitalize. After all, who is at liberty to import overseas-manufactured knockoffs? The only people who can do it without running into piracy law problems...the major designers themselves.

The IDPPPA is a corporate-friendly proposal, which squeezes out legitimate domestic competition and benefits only two parties: big name designers and overseas manufacturing outfits. Chichi Designer will put out a new dress. For a time it will hit the runways, create a buzz in the high-end fashion sector and will adorn the racks at high-end retailers such as Neimann Marcus. After a short time, the designer will have tapped its initial market and will need to continue the spread of its trend to a wider market. In order to do so, Chichi Designer itself will commission cheaper versions to be made in China or elsewhere and attach a no-name label to it. This “knockoff” will now be suitably priced to fill the racks at more moderately priced retail outlets such as Kohl’s and TJ Maxx. The large designer double dips. China makes money. And every smaller clothing maker in America goes out of business.

This proposed law embraces the “world economy” in a wholly nonsensical way. More US money...straight overseas in exchange for re-imported goods that will be paid for from domestic pockets. The attack on the sustainability of the US middle class and mid-sized US domestic businesses gains an additional arrow in the quiver. And this time the supplier of the poison economic pill is the US itself by enactment of a shortsighted law.

How Do I Register Copyrights For My Band's CD (Part 3 of 3)

Alright, so if you've gotten to this point, you've already read Parts 1 and Part 2 and you just need to register the copyright in an underlying song that was written by people different from those who played on the recording. If any of this is not the case for you, or you're confused. I STRONGLY suggest you go back and start at Part 1.

Let's jump right into registering the songs you wrote. Again, this is only necessary where the writers of the songs are different from the people who played on the recordings that we registered in Part 2.

Assuming you are at the shopping cart and just registered the Sound Recordings, click "Add More Services."

This process is almost identical to what you did in Part 2.
1) Click "Register a New Claim."
2) Click "Start Registration."
3) Select "Work of the Performing Arts" and click "Next."
4) Enter the album title as "Title of Work Being Registered" and each of the song titles as "Contents Title." Click "Next."
5) Just as we did before, specify whether you have published the songs already.

6) You are now on the Authors page. Here you want to enter only the people who wrote the song - not other bandmates or studio musicians or anyone else. Only people who wrote the songs. When you hit "Save" for each person, it will ask you to specify their contribution (e.g., music, lyrics, etc.). Select the appropriate things for each person and hit save. Repeat this until you've listed all the writers, then click "Next."

7) Specify the Claimants. It should match the writers unless there was a written agreement otherwise, or if someone's contribution was a work for hire.

8) Specify if there are any parts of your song that were pre-existing. Did you quote someone extensively? Did you specify the use of a clip or sample? Most likely you're going to skip this by clicking "Next."

9) Fill in the Rights & Permissions contact.
10) Fill in the Correspondent in case the Copyright Office needs to contact you.
11) Fill in the name and address for the certificate.
12) Special handling - you most likely want to skip this. If you think any of them applies to you, you should probably be chatting with a lawyer at this point.
13) Certify your submission.
14) Review it and add it to the cart.

Now you've got your Sound Recording and you Work of the Performing Arts applications filled out and added to your shopping cart. Hit "Checkout," pay your money, and voila! You should be hearing from the Copyright Office.



Disclaimer: It's very important that you do this right. While I've attempted to help you through the copyright registration process, this is not legal advice. If you have ANY questions, you need to contact a lawyer and get them to help you complete the process properly.

How Do I Register Copyrights for my Band's CD (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this article, I explained a whole bunch of preliminary matters related to copyright registration for your band's songs or albums. Those preliminary matters are pretty important stuff. If you haven't read Part 1, you definitely should start there and then come back here to get started.

Now let's jump right into registering our copyrights.

Online Registration
You should take advantage of online registration for several reasons. First, it's convenient. You don't have to mail anything and you can simply upload your music, type in your info, pay by credit card and be done. Second, there is a reduced filing fee, which right now is $35.

1) Go to the Copyright Office's website at www.copyright.gov/eco/.

2) You'll see a brief description of the "eCO Online System." Below that, there's a link that says "Login to eCo." Click the "Electronic Copyright Office" icon next to that.

3) Click the "Continue to eCO" button.

4) At this point you're asked for login information. If you haven't registered...well, register. If you already have an account, log on.

5) You now arrive at your Open Cases screen.


Open a New Case
1) On the left side menu, under the heading "Copyright Services" click "Register a New Claim." On the next screen, click the gray box that says "Start Registration."

2) Let's start by registering the Sound Recording. So, in the "Type of Work" dropdown list, select Sound Recording. At the top, click the "Next" button.

3) Now, here's where we need to start being smart so we save ourselves all that money I talked about. Because we're registering a whole album, we can register all of the songs on that album at once rather than doing each song individually.


4) You see an empty list of works. Let's start by adding the album itself. So, click the "New" button. In the "Title Type" dropdown list, select "Title of Work Being Registered." In the box below it, type the album title. If it's a demo, an EP, whatever...give it a title. Even if it's "Demo EP." Now click the gray "Save" button above. You are returned to the list of works and you should see the album title.

5) Now we need to list the songs on the album. Click the gray "New" button again. The songs on the album are the contents of the album, right? So, in the "Title Type" dropdown list, select "Contents Title." In the box below it, type the name of the first song on the album. Click "Save." You are now returned to the works list and you should have the album title and the first song.

6) Repeat step 5 for each song on the album. When you've finished, click the "Next" button on the works screen.

7) The next screen asks if the work has been published. If you've sold the CD, posted the songs on Myspace, Sonicbids, or otherwise made the recordings public (I mean THESE recordings. Not another recording of the same song.) you MUST say yes. Answering incorrectly is not going to help you. Tell the truth. If you select yes, you will be asked for some extra information. "Year of Completion" means when the recording was finished. "Date of First Publication" means when you sold it, put it online, etc. (It does not mean when you first played it at a gig.) If you sold a CD at a gig, put down the date you did that. "Nation of First Publication" is where you published it. If you're reading this, my guess is you're going to select United States. You most likely want to ignore the other boxes, so click "Next."

8) We're now at the point where you need to name the authors of the work. "Authors" is a legal term in the copyright field. In this case, it means who wrote the song. If you and your 3 bandmates sat in a room and jammed, mixing and matching and tweaking until you came up with a song, you're all authors. And in our example, since we're talking about who played on the recording, all of the players are "authors." Click "Add Me" to add yourself and "New" to add the other people. For each one, put in name, year of birth, citizenship, domicile (what country you permanently live in). You should also select "no" for the "work made for hire" question. The only way this is "yes" is if you commissioned someone to write with you, or paid a studio musician. If you did pay a studio musician and they signed a release, put them as an author and choose "yes." Click "Save."

9) Now specify the person's contribution. For someone who played on the recording, check "Sound Recording" and "Performance." Click "Save." Repeat steps 8 and 9 until you have all of the people who played on the recording listed. Then click "Next" to move on.

10) You're now asked for the "Claimants." The Claimant is the person (or people) who will get ownership of the registered copyright. If you did not specify anyone as contributing a "work for hire" in the previous step, you should add all of the people from steps 8 & 9 to this list. The only scenarios where this list will differ from the authors list is if a) someone's contribution was a work for hire (in which case you leave him off) or b) the authors have already completed a copyright assignment where someone gave away or sold their rights. In those cases, the claimants would be the ones who were not contributing works for hire, or in the case of (b) the ones who received the assignment. If none of this sounds familiar, your claimants will almost certainly match your authors. Once you have all these entered, click "Next."

11) This step is about limiting your claim. You only need to fill this out if you sampled from an earlier work, took something from the public domain like "When The Saints Go Marching In" or based your song on a song that has otherwise already been registered. Most likely you will want to skip this step by clicking "Next." But again, make sure you answer this question truthfully (as with all portions). If you don't you could end up with a worthless registration.

12) The next three steps are easy (FINALLY!!!). In "Rights & Permissions" put in the name of the person that should be contacted if people want to use the song in a movie, want to cover the song, etc. Then enter the person you want the Copyright Office to contact about this registration. That's the correspondent. Finally, put in the name and address you want the official copyright certificate sent to. If you're doing the legwork here, it's very likely that all 3 steps will be you. Easy, huh?

13) Next is the screen asking about special handling. You almost certainly will not want to check any of those boxes. If any of them sound like they might apply, you probably have a lawyer involved already and you should get their opinion. Otherwise, skip this step and click "Next."

14) Now you've reached the Certification page. This is where you state that you've provided truthful information. It's important that you have done so. Assuming you have, type your name, check the box and hit "Next."

15) DISABLE YOUR POP-UP BLOCKER BEFORE YOU DO THIS STEP - You've now finished entering all the info you need. Review it, make any necessary corrections and click "Add to Cart." (This part seems to be slow, so just wait til it goes to the next screen.) If you read the parts above and you don't need to fill out a separate Work of Performing Arts registration, checkout and pay your money.

16) Once you submit your payment, a pop-up window will appear asking you to upload your songs. Choose your MP3 files from your hard drive, submit them, and that's it!

Congratulations! You'll be hearing from the Copyright Office.

If you do need to do a separate Work of Performing Arts registration, go on to Part 3.


Disclaimer: It's very important that you do this right. While I've attempted to help you through the copyright registration process, this is not legal advice. If you have ANY questions, you need to contact a lawyer and get them to help you complete the process properly.

How Do I Register Copyrights for My Band's CD? (Part 1)

How the heck do I copyright my band's songs or my band's CD?

This is a very common question, and the online registration process from the Copyright Office's website is not the most intuitive thing in the world. So, I'm going to try to walk you through it in as simple a manner as possible. After I explain a bunch of stuff, there's a list of steps at the bottom that you can print out and use as a guide.

Preliminary Matters
Let's quickly clear up a couple things first.

0) "Disclaimer" - This is important stuff and you need to get it right to protect your rights properly. I intend to give you an overview in this 3-part series, but I cannot, and do not, provide legal advice over the Internet. If anything you read here, or encounter while registering is not clear, you should STOP AND CONTACT AN ATTORNEY.

1) "Copyrighting" - When you file a copyright application, you're not "copyrighting" your songs. The copyright in your songs comes into existence the moment you "fix it in a tangible medium." What the heck does that mean? Well, it just means that once you make a recording of the song, the copyright exists and belongs to you. You're simply registering that copyright with the Copyright Office.

2) Why Register? The long and short of it is that you want to be able to protect yourself if somebody rips you off. Registering the copyright(s) makes it possible for you to stop an infringer from continuing to profit from a song they "stole" from you. Without a registration, you may be able to stop them from selling any more copies, but you won't get any compensation. Having the registration allows you to receive money damages if somebody rips off your copyrighted song. It's also important, for legal reasons, to register within 3 months of releasing the material. If that 3 months has expired, you should still register. But you're in better shape if you register right away.

3) Save Yourself A LOT of Money The registration fee for online filing at the time I'm writing this is $35. If you're not too savvy with copyright registration (which is not something you should expect yourself to be savvy in) you could end up paying $35 per song to register the recordings, and maybe another $35 per song to register the work itself if the writers are not the performers. That's a ton of money. You could end up spending $840 to register a 12-song album. Do it right and you can register that same 12-song album for $35 total ($70 if the writers and performers are different). A savings of $770 is a nice American Standard Strat, a used SG or a set of bass bottoms for your PA. Follow the instructions below and save yourself a lot of money.

4) Before You Start
Collect the following information: Legal name, address, year of birth and country of citizenship for all of your bandmates/co-writers. If you don't have this, you're going to end up having to save your application in the middle and come back later to finish it.

5) !!!VERY IMPORTANT POINT!!! - What Kind of Work Am I Registering? Read this section a couple times, because it's not necessarily intuitive, but it's important. If the people who wrote the song are not the same as the people who played on the recording, you need to fill out two different forms.

Let's say I'm in a band with 3 other guys. I play drums, there's a bassist, a guitarist and a guitarist/singer. If all four of us collaborate to write a song and all four of us go into the studio and record the song (or in our basement, or wherever), we only fill out one application. In that case, we only need to register the work as a Sound Recording.

Let's say the same band is involved, but the singer and bassist write the song (think Iron Maiden or the Beatles) and all four of the band members play on the recording. In this situation you need to fill out two applications. One is to register the song that the singer and bassist wrote (that's a Work of the Performing Arts). The second application is to register the actual recording that all four band members laid down. As above, that's a Sound Recording. This means that if someone wants to use the actual recording we made, all four band members get paid. If someone wants to cover the song by making their own recording, only the writers get paid.

As I said, re-read that section if you're confused, but the bottom line is, if the list of writers is not identical to the list of performers, fill out two forms (SR and PA). If the writers and performers are the same, just fill out one (SR).

Who Owns What?
When you register a work created by multiple people, each person is presumed to own an equal share. Two writers? That's 50-50 in the PA work. Four performers? That's 25-25-25-25 in the SR. If you want the ownership to be different, you need to fill out an agreement between you afterward. That agreement is known as a copyright assignment and it lets you assign rights however you want. This is a simple agreement and you may be able to find good examples online. Note that this is not a function of the Copyright Office. This is something you do on your own (hopefully with the help of a lawyer to make sure everything looks good).

OK, let's move onto Part 2 and get started.

Disclaimer: It's very important that you do this right. While I've attempted to help you through the copyright registration process, this is not legal advice. If you have ANY questions, you need to contact a lawyer and get them to help you complete the process properly.

What Does the Recent Facebook Terms of Service Update Really Mean?

There has been a lot of noise across the Internet over the last two days about a recent update to the Terms of Service on social networking mega-site Facebook. Users are concerned that the new language gives Facebook ownership of the content posted by users.

Two sections of the TOS are the center of the outcry. Let's handle this section first:

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

Let's break that down. Section (a) basically just says that you are uploading content to Facebook and by doing so you give them the right to show it to the world through their website. This should be a no-brainer. In reality, this language is required to protect Facebook from the ungracious user who one minute wants to upload a video of themselves doing the Macarena and then the next minute wants to turn around and sue Facebook for copyright infringement when Facebook "distributes" the content by letting other people watch it or Facebook makes a copy in some perfectly acceptable way, such as transferring it to another server. I wouldn't get yourself riled up about that at all.

Secion (b) is a little more of a concern. In short, it says that Facebook can use your images, name, etc. for their own promotional purposes. Although it's slightly scary, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. The right to privacy is rather highly regarded in US courts (see also the right to publicity). I suspect that if Facebook really tried to use your content (especially content including your image) without getting your permission first (other than the permission you presumably give them through "acceptance" of the TOS) you could shut it down real fast by seeking an injunction and possibly threatening other action. The last thing an outfit like Facebook wants is bad publicity about how it takes its users' pictures and plasters them all over the Internet.

Next, there is a section that provides:

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

This is pretty standard stuff. It just means that if you delete content off the Facebook website they aren't going to take all the technical effort to go and scour their backup servers to make sure it's deleted everywhere. To some degree they can't do that, because they might be deleting information that would later be the subject of a lawsuit and then they'd risk ending up in hot water for not preserving relevant evidence.

In the end, the only part that I really don't like is that they can use you to advertise. But let's see them try that without a tidal wave of bad publicity and legal fallout.

Are Statutory Copyright Damages Unconstitutional?

It was only a matter of time before someone raised the constitutionality of copyright damages as a defense in the context of RIAA file sharing lawsuits. As I had suggested in my comments regarding the Jammie Thomas case, the awards of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in statutory damages for offenses that create actual damages of perhaps $3.50 is fertile ground for accused infringers interested in fighting the RIAA.

Denise Barker, a defendant in an RIAA file sharing case, settled with the group yesterday for $6,050. This, after raising the constitutionality of the Copyright Act's damages provisions, though admitting to sharing major label, copyrighted files over KaZaA. Clearly the RIAA wanted no part of this fight or its sure-to-be-exorbitant legal costs.

I expect this constitutionality question and criminal copyright penalties to be the next battlegrounds for the RIAA and its defendants.

Blogger Who Posted Unreleased Guns N' Roses Tunes May Soon Be a Singing Jailbird

The story of Kevin Cogill, the blogger who posted unreleased tracks from Axl Roses' unreleased Chinese Democracy has seen a lot of coverage over the last week. My thoughts on the matter can be found in the following story at eCommerceTimes.com.

Doug Panzer Comments in Blogger Faces Hard Time for Posting Guns N' Roses Music.

Article Published

My most recent article on the PRO-IP Act has been published in the April issue of Intellectual Property Today. It is available online at http://www.iptoday.com/articles/2008-4-panzer.asp

The PRO-IP Act: Pulling Section 104

As I mentioned yesterday, the Congressional subcommittee reviewing the PRO-IP Act has pulled section 104 from the bill in an effort to make the bill more palatable to legislators at large. In a legal and logical sense, it seems that if we give the subcommittee members - and Rep. Berman in particular - the benefit of the doubt regarding their good intentions, this amendment would have come about for one important reason. Creating a statutory damages statute that allows for damages for each component part of a compilation simply injects too much uncertainty into the legal landscape when using pre-existing copyrighted materials.

The idea of fair use is essential to the continuing creation of new copyrightable subject matter in all media. Whether it is to spur the later creator to wholly new insights or as the basis for development of derivative works, fair use allows a person to use portions of someone else's copyrighted material for things such as criticism, education and parody.

In determining whether incorporation of copyrighted material in a work is "fair use," the courts undertake to analyze the following four factors:

1.the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

2.the nature of the copyrighted work;

3.amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Because this 4-factor analysis is interpretive, the later author or creator must make his own judgment at the outset of creation as to whether his use will be fair. If the original copyright holder disagrees and a court finds infringement, the later creator will be liable for damages. Changing the statutory damages provision as originally proposed by the PRO-IP Act, simply makes the risk too great for those intending to use materials under the fair use doctrine, and therefore stifles artistic innovation.

While the legislators on the subcommittee assure us that reform of statutory damages is still on the table, it seems that for now logic has prevailed.

Pro-IP Update: Statutory Damages Provision Removed

The House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts, The Internet, and Intellectual Property has sent its version of the PRO-IP Act to the full committee, but in the process has removed the proposed amendment to the statutory damages provision of 17 USC 504, which I discussed in my previous post. Clearly the subcommittee members have heard the calls of the many detractors who believe that this provision was poorly thought out.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) added a written statement to the record assuring all that the notion of statutory damages for component parts of a compilation remained "subject matter for another day." That should keep the RIAA and MPAA campaign contributions coming in.

PRO-IP Act Serves Only RIAA and Similar Lobbyists...And Not Very Well

What is a single sentence worth? In copyright law, it would appear the answer is: $150,000 per song.

Much commentary has been offered over the last two months since a bill known as the PRO-IP Act was introduced in the House of Represenatives on December 5, 2007. The bill (H.R. 4279), properly known as the "Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2007" covers much ground and states its purpose as "to enhance remedies for violations of intellectual property laws." However, the bulk of the focus in the blogosphere and elsewhere online has centered around a single sentence in Section 104 of the bill - a sentence so obviously bought outright by the influence of the RIAA, the MPAA and their ilk.

Section 104 of the PRO-IP Act proposes to replace the second sentence of 17 USC 504(c)(1). Section 504 of the Copyright Act provides for copyright damages - those damages referred to as "statutory damages." In the simplest terms, Section 104 proposes to amend 504(c)(1) so that damages for infringement by illegal copying of an album will be calculated based upon individual songs - not complete albums - thereby multiplying potential damage awards in file sharing cases by 10 or 12 times the current amount in most cases.

As 504(c)(1) stands, "all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work." This means that if a person illegally downloads a 12-song album, their potential total statutory liability lies between $750 and $150,000. If the PRO-IP Act becomes law, a copyright owner will be "entitled to recover statutory damages for each copyrighted work sued upon that is found to be infringed." This means that illegally downloading the same 12-song album will expose the guilty party to a damage award of up to $1.8 million.

That Congress would so readily hand to the recording industry and other copyright owners a larger sledgehammer with which to bludgeon their fleeing customers is a fine example of influence without intellect. As a copyright attorney I am a strong supporter of the rights of copyright owners. Plainly put, intellectual property is valuable and theft of that property is no different than theft of material goods. However, the proposed damages provision in the PRO-IP bill does nothing to discourage theft by consumers or to encourage the RIAA and its member organizations to update their own failing and outmoded models.

A college student sued by the RIAA is as unlikely to pay a judgment of $1.8 million as he is to pay a judgment of $150,000. Moreover, there is no evidence that the campaign of file sharing lawsuits has done anything to stem the tide of infringement. Simply raising the potential damages by tenfold is a blind shot that clearly has less to do with solving the problem than it does with pleasing these Congressional policymakers' financial backers.

The answer to reducing infringement by mass file sharing lies in education of consumers - primarily at a young age - and the changing of the outmoded business models of the major record labels and other content owners. The PRO-IP bill neither achieves nor encourages either of these. It is simply a legislative bandage bought by the content owners and sold by Congress, when what is truly necessary is reconstructive surgery of the related business and consumer practices. In the meantime, however, the PRO-IP Act's amendment to the damages provision of the Copyright Act should provide the RIAA and others with more cash from larger damage awards and "settlements" for the same infringements that will not stop.