by Sarah McBride in the Wall Street Journal:
"Fighting a losing battle against music and movie pirates, the entertainment industry is trying a fresh tack: seeking new laws that would make it easier to prosecute people who illegally trade songs and films over the Internet.Copyright holders are stepping up the drive toward new antipiracy legislation in the wake of a stinging federal appeals-court ruling that would allow creators of Internet file-sharing software to stay in operation, despite piracy by their users.
Unless it's overturned by the Supreme Court, the ruling may make it difficult for the industry ever to get satisfaction from the courts when it comes to file-sharing.
With that as a backdrop, movie studios, music companies and other copyright holders believe they need stricter laws that would allow them to sue people who they think encourage copyright violation by creating technologies that enable piracy. Congress is poised soon to revisit a controversial bill, known as the Induce Act, that takes direct aim at makers of the peer-to-peer software used in the illicit online trade in copyrighted songs, movies and other material. The bill's high-profile supporters include much of the entertainment industry, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
But companies in a wide range of other industries — consumer electronics, technology and even financial services — worry that the Induce Act could ensnare them as well. The companies fear they would face liability if their products — CD and DVD burners, for example — were used by people making illegal copies of entertainment products. Even manufacturers of components for those products fear they could face lawsuits if the proposed law takes effect. Among the companies that have come out against the act are Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc."
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