It may soon be possible to carry around an AK-47 assault rifle and an iPod with you down the street - and be arrested for carrying the iPod. That's according to critics of a Senate amendment to the copyright code proposed by Sen. Orrin Hatch this week called the 'Induce Act'. He wants to make the 'intentional inducement of copyright infringement' an offense, and this will extend liability to any manufacturer of a device which plays infringed material, or a shop that sells such a device, they say. Hatch's terse amendment states that "the term 'intentionally induces' means intentionally aids, abets, induces, or procures; and intent may be shown by acts from which a reasonable person would find intent to induce infringement based upon all relevant information about such acts then reasonably available to the actor, including whether the activity relies on infringement for its commercial viability," in which caser the inducer becomes an infringer. However, the amendment also says that "nothing in this subsection shall enlarge or diminish the doctrines of vicarious and contributory liability for copyright infringement or require any court to unjustly withhold or impose any secondary liability for copyright infringement." And it's contributory liability that the RIAA want to see changed. In his floor speech introducing the measure, Hatch said that once people are given PCs, they are bound to infringe. (Many would agree with him there). So he frames his bill as a protection. Hatch said people weren't aware that they were breaking the law by running P2P software, (citing work by Harvard's Berkman Center, which says the Senator quoted them out of context) and therefore running "piracy machines" that had been designed to mislead their users. Therefore, his argument goes, the users are in need of protection from 'inducement'. No exceptions The problem is that 'fair use' isn't on the statute books. It arose from case law, and specifically the Sony vs. Betamax case in 1984 in which the entertainment industry failed to prevent the video recorder being sold. Hatch rather gleefully points this out. "Congress codified no exceptions for 'substantial non-criminal uses'." The act does nothing to address two key issues. The bill insists that only by criminalizing millions of people can we ensure artists get paid, which is supposed to be our common goal. And it fails to recognize that people are always going to exchange music. This is odd, because four years ago Senator Hatch subscribed to both these points of view. He threatened the RIAA that he would introduce flat fee legislation, effectively decriminalizing what he now calls "piracy", if it didn't clean up its act. Despite the contributory infringement clause, the opposition is adamant that this will threaten the manufacture, promotion or sale of devices which play infringing material. "No one will invest in, or invent new innovative technologies if the mere fact that they can be used unlawfully is enough to make both the investors and the inventors liable," said Public Knowledge's Mike Godwin. Mitch Bainwol, The RIAA's chief executive ,has denied that manufacturers are the target - "this is not about going after the device makers," he told the New York Times, and instead is directed at the P2P networks. Hatch himself said the law had purposefully been crafted to avoid bothering manufacturers. "It was critical to find a way to narrowly identify the rare bad actors without implicating the vast majority of companies that serve both consumers and copyright-holders by providing digital copying devices - even though these devices, like all devices, can be misused for unlawful purposes," he said. Source: The Register