No. H.R. 5211 just ensures that copyright owners are treated like other property owners. Current law allows property owners in many contexts to use "self-help" to protect their property. Satellite companies face no liability when they use electronic countermeasures to stop the pirating of their signals and programming. Banks face no liability when they repossess automobiles for delinquent loan payments. A bicycle owner faces no liability for grabbing his bike from a thief's yard. A victim of a pickpocket faces no liability for tackling and taking back his wallet from the pickpocket. However, due to the overbreadth of many anti-hacking laws, copyright owners do not have a corresponding ability to prevent the theft of their property through P2P systems. H.R. 5211 would correct this unintentional inequity.

Doesn't current law provide copyright owners with sufficient tools to stop piracy?

The massive copyright piracy occurring on decentralized, P2P networks cannot be adequately addressed through current law. Decentralized P2P networks were designed specifically (and ingeniously) to thwart suits for copyright infringement by ensuring there is no central service to sue. Digital rights management technologies provide no protection to copyrighted works once they are distributed "in the clear" on P2P networks. Lastly, suits against individual infringers on P2P networks are viable, but are unlikely to make a dent in the billions of files traded monthly among over 150 million P2P network users.

Who does H.R. 5211 benefit?

H.R. 5211 will help all copyright owners, including songwriters, photographers, musicians, software programmers, needlepoint designers, film producers, journalists, graphic artists, and recording artists. H.R. 5211 restores to these copyright owners the right to decide whether their creations are distributed through P2P networks, and takes that decision out of the hands of pirates. A photographer - not a pirate - should decide whether her photographs are distributed through Gneutella.

In addition, H.R. 5211 will help consumers by fostering the development of reliable and legal online services for downloading copyrighted works. P2P networks are notoriously unreliable, have bugs that expose personal information to public disclosure, can be used as "tunneling protocols" to breach computer security, and are rife with malicious viruses. However, some copyright owners have been stymied - at least partially - in their efforts to roll out legitimate online services because they cannot compete with the free availability of their works on P2P networks.

Is P2P file-sharing illegal?

It depends. P2P file sharing is perfectly legal if the work being shared is not copyrighted or is shared with the authorization of the copyright owner. However, unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works through a publicly accessible, P2P network is copyright infringement pure and simple. There is no concept of fair use that encompasses making a copyrighted needlepoint design available for downloading by 100 million KaZaA users.

Does the safe harbor created by H.R. 5211 extend to any copyright owner who interferes with file-trading upon a reasonable basis to believe piracy is taking place?