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> No Electronic Theft Act...The NET Act
No Electronic Theft Act...The NET Act
H.R. 2265, known as the No Electronic Theft Act, or NET, was introduced
by Rep. Robert Goodlatte, R-Va., and signed into law by President Clinton
in December 1997.
The NET was designed to fill certain gaps in the U.S. Copyright Act,
as it relates to online copyright infringement and use of copyrighted
materials online.
The NET added three important provisions to the Copyright Act:
- First "financial gain" was redefined to include the receipt of anything
of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works.
- Prior to the enactment of the NET, a case called U.S. v. LaMacchia
set the standards for receipt of value. La Macchia was a computer bulletin
board operator who published copyrighted works online. Because there
was no proft motive, the court had to dismiss the criminal action for
copyright infringement. (The law, prior to the NET amendment required
a profit motive before anyone could be criminally prosecuted for copyright
infringement, although they could be civilly prosecuted even if no profit
motive existed.) The addition of the definition of financial gain to
include "anything of value" now allows criminal prosecution of online
copyight infringement, even by people sharing copyrighted software or
games online. It was designed to address the problems identified by
software manufacturers and publishers of copyrighted work which is commonly
infringed online, in particular the infringement by teenagers.
- Second, the NET criminalizes the willful reproduction or distribution
(during a 180-day period), through electronic or other means, one or
more copies of a copyrighted work with an aggregate retail value of
more than $1,000.
- This means that even if there is no profit motive and no receipt
of anything of value, even other software or copyrighted material, someone
can be criminally prosecuted if the total retail value of the reproduction
or distribution exceeds $1000. (This applies even if someone merely
send several copies of pirated software to friends online)
- Third, the NET extended the statute of limitations on criminal copyright
infringement from three to five years and increases the penalties and
fines for criminal copyright infringement, generally.
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