Senate OKs anti-piracy measure
Hollywood Reporter
Thursday, February 3, 2005
By Brooks Boliek
WASHINGTON (Hollywood Reporter) – The third time could be the charm
for legislation that would make it a federal crime to camcord a movie
and would protect the manufacturers of players that edit out
purportedly offensive content from movies.
Although the Senate late Tuesday approved the Family Entertainment and
Copyright Act (FECA) of 2005 — a package of copyright bills — for
the first time in the 109th Congress, it twice passed the legislation
in the 108th only to see it die at the end in a squabble over
unrelated legislation.
Included in FECA is the camcorder legislation, the Family Movie Act
and legislation designed to make it easier for law-enforcement
officials to combat the growing problem of music and movies being
distributed on file-sharing networks and circulating on the Internet
before they are released. FECA also contains a measure to reauthorize
an existing program for the preservation of historically and
culturally significant films.
“This important, bipartisan legislation will crack down on what has
become a growth industry in this era of rapid technological
development: the theft and distribution of copyrighted material. I
appreciate my colleagues moving this bill so quickly and urge our
friends in the House to do the same,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
Sens. Cornyn and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and
Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., were the key boosters of the legislation in the
Senate.
While supporters of the bill hailed its passage, approval in the House
could be more problematic even though the House approved different
versions of the bill, according to industry sources. The House failed
to approve the bill last year because of a dispute between Sen. John
McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., and House Commerce
Committee chairman Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, over boxing-reform
legislation. Industry officials hope the hangover from that fight and
some resentment of the industry will not bring the current bill to a
similar fate.
Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, a primary author of the legislation and
chairman of the House’s copyright subcommittee, has expressed hope the
bill could move quickly there, too.
“There is no word on that yet,” said MGM chairman and CEO Alex
Yemenidjian, who has aggressively lobbied for the bill. “It’s long
overdue. I hope the House can pass it quickly so we can start
prosecuting these criminals.”
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