Pallante: Large-Scale Illegal Internet Streaming Should Be Felony

Tells Hill that is one tool to help crack down on content piracy

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/20/2013 5:53:45 PM

At a Hill hearing Wednesday, register of copyrights Maria Pallante stood up for content creators and pushed for Congress to close a loophole in the law and makes illegal streaming of content over the Internet a felony rather than a misdemeanor.

Pallante was the sole witness at a hearing in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet on her recommendations for revisiting copyright law to square it with the digital age and new ways to distribute content.

She made it clear that she was talking about tools to go after large piracy groups and enterprises, not the student downloading music in their dorm room, and in the criminal context, "egregious, criminal conduct," she said, at the "worst, purposeful levels."

But she suggested those tools should include criminal penalties for illegal streams, just as there are for distribution of copies of physical works.

"Law enforcement can go over reproduction and distribution, and they can go after that in a meaningful way because those are felonies. But the public performance right, which is implicated by streaming -- performing the work but not necessarily downloading it or streaming a copy, whether it's a football game or music -- is a misdemeanor."

As she indicated in her prepared testimony, Pallante emphasized to the subcommittee that authors and content creators large and small are at the heart of the public interest, explaining that notion came from James Madison.

She said that one problem with copyright law was it had gotten away from putting authors as the primary beneficiaries of the law, followed by the public good. She said she believed in fair use and access, but not at the expense of the creators.

"People do not have the right to have whatever they want whenever they want it for free," she said.

Pallante was asked how successful the "notice and takedown" enforcement regime has been. She said the "next great copyright act" should look at how effective that has been and there were arguments on both sides.