The Senate is attempting to get H.R. 2391 passed. H.R. 2391 is an amalgamation of several other copyright-related bills. It replaces Orrin Hatch's Inducement of Copyright Infringement bill, which was effectively killed earlier this year. Just what does H.R. 2391 do?

Title I: Alters requirements of "prior art." If you could prove that an invention patented by someone else was already widely in use before that person claimed he patented it, the patent was invalid (this prevented a person from claiming creation and ownership of an already popular, unpatented invention). H.R. 2391 makes a stipulation that if an invention was jointly created, then one of the inventors may lay claim to a patent if it qualifies as prior art!

Title II: Requires the undertaking of a program in which "[t]he public should be educated about the security and privacy risks associated with being con nected to certain peer-to-peer networks." It also authorizes the Department of Justice to send warning letters to Internet Service Providers.

Buried deep within Title II is Section 208, which criminalizes using "audiovisual recording devices" in movie theaters, requiring a sentence of not more than three years in prison, or a fine, or both.

Also buried deep within Title II is Section 210, called "enhancement of criminal copyright infringement." As one suspects, it increases the criminal penalty for copyright infringement.

Still located in Title II of this bill is Section 212, the "Family Movie Act of 2004," which authorizes the creation of "family-friendly" copies of motion pictures (see previous post about the technology called ClearPlay), even if the copyright-owner doesn't want such copies to be created.

Title III: "The Protecting Intellectual Right Against Theft and Expropriation Act of 2004." Section 301 allows the Attorney General to commence a civil suit against anyone who infringes copyright, where the standard of evidence is a preponderance of the evidence.

Title IV: "The National Film Preservation Act of 2004." This isn't too bad. It does what it says it's going to do: preserve films in the National Archives.

Title V: "Preservation of Orphan Works Act." Just like it sounds.

Title VI: "The Enhancing Federal Obscenity Reporting and Copyright Enforcement Act of 2004." Not as sexy as it sounds. Changes requirements for reporting obscenity incidents to Congress and copyright certification.

Title VII: Specifies further what "counterfeit labels, illicit labels, or counterfeit documentation or packing" means in 18 U.S.C. 2318.

And that's the bill in a nutshell. Some parts are good, others bad. I suppose that's what you get from an omnibus bill like this one. The problem, of course, is that in order for the good parts to be passed, the bad parts must be passed, also.

While the article about this at Wired claims that, "under the proposed language, viewers would not be allowed to use software or devices to skip commericals or promotional announcements 'that would otherwise be performed or displayed before, during or after the performance of the motion picture,' like the previews on a DVD," such language is not to be found in the bill. This language instead comes from a Congressional Report about Digital Rights Management Legislation which refers to the Family Movie Act, noting, "The filtering cannot result in a fixed copy of the altered version, and no changes, deletions, or additions are to be made to commercial advertisements or promotional announcements that would otherwise be performed or displayed before, during, or after the performance." Under the proposed language, the manufacturer of a filter cannot create a filter designed to skip advertisements or announcements. Wired, it seems, misinterpreted that part, since skipping advertisments was never the intent of the law, anyway.