Celebrity Death Match: Hollywood v. The Internet!

Those wacky, fun-loving Hollywood lobbyists and their representatives in Washington are at it again. House bill HR 2885, introduced on July 24 of this year, seeks to prohibit distribution of peer-to-peer file trading software. It's to protect the children, dontcha know. From THOMAS, the official website for US Congressional legislative information:

A BILL
To prohibit the distribution of peer-to-peer file trading software in interstate commerce.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Protecting Children from Peer-to-Peer Pornography Act of 2003'.

The rest of the bill is considerably more entertaining than any comedy I've seen lately. It includes such amazing logical deductions as this:

(6) The availability of peer-to-peer systems as a distribution mechanism for child pornography may lead to further sexual abuse of children, because the production of child pornography is intrinsically related to sexual abuse of children.

I guess the parts of the bill that prohibit postal service, the printing press, cameras, film, and Internet use in general will be forthcoming later, right, guys? After all, they're "distribution mechanisms for child pornography".

The RIAA has stated its support for the bill. Some of its members' bloviations on the subject have been almost as amusing as the bill itself. For example:

"As a guy in the record industry and as a parent, I am shocked that these services are being used to lure children to stuff that is really ugly," said Andrew Lack, the chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment. (from an interview with a newspaper which has removed itself from civilized discourse, quoted here.)

Um, let's see: a record executive is shocked... shocked!... to find that sexualized images of youngsters are being distributed. ("Your winnings, sir.....")

As usual, the discussion at Slashdot ranges from Informative to Flamebait. To be honest, in reading the text of the bill, I can't see precisely where the bill explicitly outlaws peer-to-peer software, although it states that this is its purpose and mandates a long and ridiculously burdensome list of requirements, including age-verification and the development of "do-not-install beacons" which would prevent computers from installing p2p software if so desired by parents, employers, manufacturers, etc. Hmmm... can you think of any reason why the RIAA might want mandatory collection of identifying information about p2p users?

Perhaps someone with more legal expertise could see more than I do.

The bill is sponsored by Joe Pitt (Republicrat representing the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America) and, in a stunning display of party unity, 14 other representatives, all Republicrats representing the RIAA and MPAA. Check here to see if any of them are nominally supposed to be representing you instead. Whether or not your "representative" is one of the sponsors, let 'em know what you think of this bill. Pay attention to how they vote, and vote accordingly to what they do, not what they say in their slick, expensive pre-election propaganda next year.

Can you say Congresswhores, kiddies? I thought you could.