FC: Democratic Party group says Napster users must not be anonymous

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[Congress should require Napster to collect addresses and credit card 
information of users before they can use it? So much for protecting 
privacy. And what about minors or the less affluent who don't have credit 
cards? The Justice Department argued for this when defending an anti-porn 
law that required credit cards, and a federal judge said imposing that rule 
on web sites "would cause serious and debilitating effects on their 
businesses." Sheesh. Just wait 'til the Progressive Policy Institute finds 
out about Freenet. --Declan]

********
See also:
http://www.dlcppi.org/press/release/napster.htm
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
http://www.epic.org/free_speech/copa/tro.html
********

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2573171,00.html

Online piracy: What's the answer?
May 19, 2000

By Reuters
May 19, 2000 4:25 PM PT

LOS ANGELES -- A centrist Democratic think tank said on Friday it will
suggest measures to Congress next week to reduce piracy associated with
controversial song-swap company Napster Inc. and similar online services.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), a Washington, D.C.-based research
organization for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, will propose
the measures in a paper on Tuesday at a House Small Business Committee
hearing.

[...]

[Robert Atkinson, Director of the New Economy Project for the institute]
said Napster only reacted quickly because of media attention.
"The law as written has no set timetable," he said, referring to the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act. "We're proposing a specific timeframe, perhaps
a week, for ISPs to remove infringing users once they're identified," he
said.

The PPI also proposed that Napster should collect identifiable and verifiable
information from its users, such as addresses and credit card information.
The paper also proposed giving judges greater flexibility in granting 
injunctions against services being used for copyright infringement.

"Right now, judges have to wait for a trial as copyright losses pile up
by the minute," he said.

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