http://news.com.com/2100-1023-954591.html DOJ to swappers: Law's not on your side By Declan McCullagh August 20, 2002, 2:27 PM PT ASPEN, Colo.--The U.S. Department of Justice is prepared to begin prosecuting peer-to-peer pirates, a top government official said on Tuesday. John Malcolm, a deputy assistant attorney general, said Americans should realize that swapping illicit copies of music and movies is a criminal offense that can result in lengthy prison terms. "A lot of people think these activities are legal, and they think they ought to be legal," Malcolm told an audience at the Progress and Freedom Foundations annual technology and politics summit. Malcolm said the Internet has become "the world's largest copy machine" and that criminal prosecutions of copyright offenders are now necessary to preserve the viability of America's content industries. "There does have to be some kind of a public message that stealing is stealing is stealing," said Malcolm, who oversees the arm of the Justice Department that prosecutes copyright and computer crime cases. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan CNET Radio 9:40 am ET weekdays: http://cnet.com/broadband/0-7227152.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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