House panel kills controversial copyright provision

HOUSE PANEL KILLS CONTROVERSIAL COPYRIGHT PROVISION
[SOURCE: InfoWorld, AUTHOR: Grant Gross]
House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property has stripped out a provision in a copyright enforcement bill that would have increased fines for compilation CDs containing pirated music by 10 times or more. Critics of the original version of the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP) Act had complained that one provision would assess fines for each separate copyright work on a compilation work such as a CD, meaning the fines for a 10-song compilation CD would range from $7,500 to $1.5 million, instead of the Subcommittee voted on Thursday to approve an amendment that stripped out the controversial provision. Critics, including online civil rights group Public Knowledge, had complained that the compilation provision in the original bill would have gone too far with new penalties. The compilation provision would have treated each song on a compilation CD as a separate copyright violation, instead of treating the entire CD as one copyright violation, as is the practice now.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/06/House-panel-kills-controversia...

* House panel deletes part of music industry-backed copyright bill
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* House Subcommittee Passes Pro IP Act
Both sides in the content-protection/fair-use-protection debate found something to like in the passage of the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2007 (Pro IP) by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6539068.html?rssid=193