IP Democracy: Sentencing Guidelines for P2P Violations Toughened

Declan McCullagh reports that the U.S. Sentencing Commission (huh?) adopted on Wednesday new guidelines that increase the prison sentences for P2P copyright violations by 40%. The changes also allow judges to “estimate” the number of files shared for purposes of determining the appropriate fine and sentence — the punishments are tied to the amount of files shared.

The new sentencing adjustments came from a law signed by President Bush in April, the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act. That law, supported by the motion picture and record companies, It imposes fines of up to $250,000 and prison terms of up to three years, regardless of whether any downloading of a prerelease work took place.

Another change in the guidelines: simply having a copyrighted file in a shared folder on a PC constitutes “uploading” or illegal distribution of the file.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on October 21, 2005 12:10 PM to IP Democracy