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12.8.2004
Setting it Straight on Pate
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Marty Lafferty, whose DCIA trade group represents Kazaa, has suggested to the FTC in comments for its upcoming P2P summit that a key law enforcement official is in line with his own thinking:
DCIA Members obey copyright laws and oppose infringement, and respect and support the Department of Justice in its enforcement role. We commend David Israelite and his team for the enormous effort evidenced by their recent IP report, many recommendations of which we support with respect to serious organized piracy for criminally commercial purposes, where economic and, in some cases, other harms have been documented, and where there is an absence of non-infringing activity. We also appreciate the perspective expressed by Assistant Attorney General Hewitt Pate in Aspen at last summer’s summit meeting.
He mentions nothing else about Pate, leaving readers of his comments in the dark as to Pate's perspective. The speech to which Lafferty's referring occurred at our most recent PFF Aspen Summit, where Pate called infringement on P2P networks a "serious problem." The P2P community has tried to spin his comments to say that he wasn't in favor of criminal action, because Pate was reluctant to endorse such action (he said he was waiting for the Justice Department task force on IP to complete its report). In fact, 2 days after Pate's speech the Department of Justice did its first P2P crackdown with Operation Digital Gridlock. Pate in the speech also dismissed the "academic" argument that diminishment of copy protection will somehow allow content to be produced and to flourish, and he endorsed civil enforcement by copyright holders.
In this age of the Internet, you don't have to rely on Lafferty's interpretation of Pate's remarks, or mine for that matter. A webcast of his speech is archived here.
posted by Patrick Ross : 12/8/2004 03:05:28 PM
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