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Davis / 2 Senator Shin

S.S._____

A BILL
To increase restrictions and penalties for file sharing and piracy,
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE
This act may be cited as the Internet Piracy Act of 2016.
SECTION 2. FINDINGS
Congress hereby finds and declares that,
1) Widely circulating estimates of 750,000 US jobs lost and $200 billion in annual economic losses to piracy have
proved similarly ungrounded, with origins in decades-old guesses about the total impact of piracy and
counterfeiting.
2) The law clearly states that downloading copyrighted music without the permission of the author is illegal, yet
44% of students think that such an action is ethical.
3) In recent years, music industry sales have declined in the United States by an average of 7% per year, after
peaking in 1999. Much of this sales decline has been attributed to the widespread use of illegal file-sharing sites,
such as Napster (introduced in 1999 and shut down in 2000) and, more recently, Grokster, LimeWire, and
Morpheus.
4) NPD noted that in March 2005, 243 million songs were downloaded from P2P services. By comparison, 26
million songs were purchased from digital music stores during that same month.
5) The recording industry estimates 63 percent of the music obtained by end users in the United States is pirated.
6) The music industry holds P2P file-sharing systems responsible for a 25% decline in music sales after 1999, and
it has identified unauthorized file sharing over the Internet as a major threat to its long-term survival with large
negative effects on the broader economy as well.
7) Reports suggest a decline in total units sold starting around the time the first big file-sharing program emerged.
8) File sharing traffic in North America presently amounts to just under one thousand petabytes per month, and, as
of the 2012 index, that traffic was expected to double over the next three years, reaching two thousand petabytes a
month by 2016.
9) Using peer-to-peer networks to copy or distribute copyrighted works without permission is infringement and
copyright owners have every right to invoke the power of the courts to combat such activity.
10) Ouprasith operated the second largest online file sharing site in the United States, averaging nearly 4.5 million
visits per month and resulting in an estimated collective loss of more than $10 million per month to the rightful
owners.
11) In 1998, a small anti-piracy team with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) was able to
locate eighty websites housing some 200,000 illegal music files in a single afternoon.
12) In 2009, 95% of music downloads were pirated, illegal copies, and the total amount of pirated tracks was over
two times the amount of legitimate purchased music.
SECTION 3. STATUTORY LANGUAGE
A) The Internet Piracy Act of 2016 shall make sure that individuals are penalized for the sharing and downloading
copyrighted material. Illegal downloading of music and movies is no different from theft and therefore shall have
the same punishment. The fine shall be $22,500 per song with a maximum fine of $2 million. In addition to the
fines made by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, copyright infringers who ignore the six warnings given by the
ISP shall be sentenced with up to 5 years in jail.
B) The state government shall be notified by the ISP when an individual exceeds six warnings. The appropriate fine
and sentence of up to three days will be given. This bill shall be funded by the 5% of state taxes going towards
prisons and correction programs.
C) This bill shall be enacted on January 1, 2017. There is no expiration date for this bill.