Civil and Criminal Categories of the No Electronic Theft Act: Criminal Copyright Infringement - Research Paper Example

 This paper gives a brief introduction to the No Electric Theft Act, its history, salient features and benefits will be discussed which will be beneficial in understanding the basic components and rules that are followed till date. Introduction to NET (No Electronic Theft) Act: Criminal Copyright Infringement The No Electronic Theft Act was passed by the United States of America in the year 1997. This law applies to individuals who indulge in violation of copyright rules even in cases where is no financial or commercial profit involved. 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. Normally an infringer would receive an amount of $1000 for the imitation or distribution of 1 or more than 1 copy of the phonorecords of one or more than 1 copyrighted work, after this law had been passed, the concerned individual was deprived from these benefits altogether. (Siegel, 200) History of No Electronic Theft Act The No Electronic Theft Act is applicable to two categories; civil and criminal accountability. Title 18 of the US code determines the punishments of the infringers by defining them in different categories and appointing penalties in alignment to the damage caused. 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 commercial benefit of any sort. (Torren, 213) Salient Features of NET (No Electronic Theft) Act The penalties regarding the law have been categorized as explained below: Fraudulent Notice of Copyright: Any individual who has a deceitful intention of placing copyright notices of articles or other work knowing that it is not original or in the other case distributes the copyrighted content in public discarding its originality will be fined $2,500. Fraudulently Removing the Notice of Copyright Any individual who attempts to remove the notice of copyright from an article or any scripture shall be subjected to a fine of $2,500. False Representation Any individual who alters and makes false alterations in the copyrighted material be it changing facts or introducing new content will be fined $2,500. Furthermore, this law is applicable three areas where copyright issues mostly occur. They are; Original fictional, theatrical, musical or creative work, audio recording, movies, transmitions and cable programmes and the typographical collection of published material. The literary or fictional work can be defined as a work which does not include musical or dramatic touch to it, anything presented in the form of writing, singing and speaking falls in this category. The script of a film excluding the actual film and its audio track falls in the category of dramatic piece. Any individual attempts to copyright the above mentioned work will be treated according to the penalties and rules outlined in the No Electronic Theft Act. The owner of copyright is expected to pay for the losses that have occurred due to infringement and the profits earned by the infringer cannot be utilized to pay or calculate the loss of the organization or individual who has been subjected to the loss. The copyright owner is expected and required to present valid proofs on the grounds of which the infringer is being accused and blamed. The profits earned by the infringer should also be stated in this course and the infringer has to present his deductible operating expenses and the factors that are involved in the gross amount presented other than copyrighting. In an infringement case, it shall be a refutation assumption that the infringement was done on ones own will to determine and to justify if the violator or any person involved with him has provided any false information regarding the name or password of a domain, maintenance or renewal of a domain in that regard. (Smith, 34) Benefits of NET (No Electronic Theft) Act The No Electronic Theft Act was signed by Bill Clinton in the year December 1997. This law endeavors to provide benefits to the copyright owners by protecting their data, literary material, movies and broadcasts simultaneously keeping an eye on anyone who violates the law and attempts to copyright, reproduce and distribute that material publicly. This law is being practiced worldwide and is essential in retaining employees, maintaining the satisfaction level of the customers and penalizing the guilty. Keeping in view its benefits and merits, a few shortcomings have also been observed as in the case of United States vs. LaMacchia in which the law failed to implement in its true essence and was therefore unable to give justice to the concerned parties due to which the law had to face a lot of criticism. This forced the Congress to put some pressure on the government so that the laws could be amended so as to avoid any future complications. This law should be studied by every individual who is in some way related to data transfers and duplications so that the unnecessary complications and involuntary rule violations can also be avoided. (Bird, 56) Works Cited Bird, Robert. The Global Challenge of Intellectual Property Rights. Edward Elgar Publishing. 2008. Siegel, Larry. Introduction to Criminal Justice. Cengage Learning. 2009. Smith, Brian. No Electronic Theft Act. Law Journal Press. 2001. Torren, Peter. Intellectual Property and Computer Crimes. Law Journal Press. 2003. Read More