The NET (No Electronic Theft) Act: Criminal Copyright Infringement - Research Paper Example

The concerned individuals are either subjected to five year prison or can be fined up to 250,000. This law also raises constitutional harms done by 50%. Before the ratification of this law, copyright infringement applied to individuals or organizations who carried out this act for monetary or commercial profits however after a few incidents, this law was altered on the suggestion of the Congress and it stopped being applied to people who did it for purpose other than the ones mentioned above.

This law negated the concept that copyright is done to attain some benefit related to money or commercial profit. However this was not the case, the law emphasized that the reason most people opt for copyright infringement was to receive a receipt, a receipt of anything valuable or even that of other copyrighted stuff. Along with the fines and punishment mentioned earlier, the No Electronic Theft Act also provided an entrance to the criminal accountability where the infringer neither obtained nor expected to obtain any kind of benefit from copyright infringement. . If the infringer has made a profit of $2,500 in duration of 180 days by producing 10 or more than 10 copies of the copyrighted material, he will be subjected to five years prison or in the other case affine of $25,000 as far as the individuals are concerned and $100,000 for the organizations.

For lawbreakers who tend to repeat the mistake, sentence of 10 year duration has been suggested in the law. With the advent of technology and software, life has become easy and complicated at the same time, complicated in the sense that it has given way to infringers, impersonators, illegal copyrighters etc. Today many copyright companies lose their valuable data and information as well as money due to the prevailing trend of piracy. The innovative digital technology has made it even easier to aggravate the affects of piracy by making duplicate copies which show no sign of imperfection and can be easily distributed and reproduced without any inconvenience.

This has resulted in discontented employees, internet users and in the bigger picture, organizations. A similar case which actually gave birth to this law and emphasized on its need was when a 22 year old student was found guilty for providing copyrighted software, songs and movies to the general masses. The individual was penalized keeping in consideration the punishments provided in the NET (No Electronic Theft) Act. He was convicted of earning a profit of $5,000 and was hence sent to 2 years prison on probation period with the application of conditions.

This law also has a bad history when it comes to the United States vs. LaMacchia case and also in the case of a student belonging to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who copyrighted for the sake of fun and no to earn money or