Building Careers and Shaping Public Policy

8 October 2004

The Honorable Sam Brownback
United States Senate
303 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Brownback:

IEEE-USA has recently learned that H.R. 4077 (the "Piracy Deterrence and Education Act") has been placed on the Senate calendar for consideration by the full Senate without hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee. We urge the Senate to reconsider this decision and allow public comment and review of this legislation through the normal legislative process.

While cast as innocuous and necessary by the entertainment industry, H.R. 4077 is neither innocuous nor immediately necessary. Indeed, if adopted as it is, H.R. 4077 would, among other things:

• Subsidize one industry among many faced with copyright piracy. The cost of copyright
  infringement is an unfortunate cost of doing business and should be borne by the copyright
  owners, and not by the general public.
• Radically expand the scope of what constitutes criminal copyright infringement with
  an uncertain and ambiguous standard.
• Expose average consumers, educators, students, journalists, and others merely reviewing
  films to prosecution.
• Significantly increase criminal sentences.
• Undermine the carefully negotiated compromises of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by inadequately maintaining exceptions for Internet Service Providers.

We believe that although there are significant issues relating to piracy of movies and music, that any solution must maintain the carefully established balance between copyright owners and the public. Maintaining that balance requires analysis and comment from the many interested parties, such as the IEEE-USA.

We ask today in the most urgent terms that H.R. 4077 be removed from the Senate calendar. This is a very controversial solution to a very complex problem. If you have any further questions on this issue, please contact Bill Williams at 202-785-0017 or at bill.williams@ieee.org.

IEEE-USA is an organizational unit of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. It was created in 1973 to advance the public good and promote the careers and public-policy interests of the more than 225,000 technology professionals who are U.S. members of the IEEE. The IEEE is the world's largest technical professional society. For more information, go to http://www.ieeeusa.org.

Sincerely,

John W. Steadman, Ph.D., P.E.
2004 IEEE-USA President

(Letter to Sens. Brownback, Shelby, Inhofe, Bond, Sessions, Bunning, Dole)