The Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act of 2004, better known as the Pirate Act, was a bill in the United States Congress that would have let federal prosecutors file civil lawsuits against suspected copyright infringers. Prior to the introduction of this act, only criminal lawsuits could be filed against suspected infringers.
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Background
By the mid-1990s, p2p file sharing over the Internet had risen to prominence. Until 1997, copyright infringement was only considered a criminal offense if it was for the purpose of "commercial advantage or private financial gain." During this year, the NET Act was passed, which allowed for federal prosecutors to file criminal lawsuits against suspected infringers, without requiring evidence of commercial benefit or financial gain. However, it proved difficult to find legitimate criminal charges, and by 2004, this privilege had yet to be invoked by federal prosecutors.
As file sharing became more popular, the music industry experienced a steady three-year decline in revenue. From 2001-2004, the industry lost $5 billion, partially attributed to the increase in online music piracy on websites such as Kazaa, Morpheus and Grokster. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) had filed thousands of civil lawsuits without the aid of federal prosecutors, hoping to deter music piracy at large. One of the first and most famous online copyright infringement lawsuits - Capitol v. Thomas - resulted in a mother of four owing $1.5 million to various music labels for violating copyrights on 24 songs.
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The Pirate Act was introduced in the United States Senate as S
In his argument in favor of the bill, Senator Leahy stated, "Prosecutors can rarely justify bringing criminal charges, and copyright owners have been left to fend for themselves, defending their rights only where they can afford to do so. In a world in which a computer and an Internet connection are all the tools you need to engage in massive piracy, this is an intolerable predicament.”
In addition to granting the DOJ this privilege, the bill also stipulated that the Attorney General would have six months to "develop a program to ensure effective implementation and use of the authority for civil enforcement of the copyright laws", and report back to Congress on the details of said lawsuits, including the total number of lawsuits and the financial statistics. The DOJ would receive $2 million in order to fund the program at its conception.
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Legislative history
The Pirate Act was grouped into an omnibus bill - The Intellectual Property Protection Act (2004) - with seven other related pieces of legislation, including the Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2004 (ART Act). It passed the Senate by a unanimous vote on June 25, 2004, and was referred to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary on August 4, 2004, where it eventually failed to pass. Various reincarnations of the Pirate Act were proposed and passed through the Senate in both 2005 and 2006, but both times it again failed to pass through the House.
Another variation - The Intellectual Property Enforcement Act of 2007 - was proposed in the Senate on November 6, 2007, but no progress was made.