US Attorney General Roberto Gonzales has proposed legislation with much harsher punishment for copyright violations, including jail time. Although the Intellectual Property Protection Act doesn’t appear to change the
fundamentals of US copyright law but does allow more leeway for the
police when investigating suspected crimes, and harsher punishments for
those convicted. Among the major changes are criminalizing "attempted" copyright violation, as opposed to "actual" and removing the requirement of copyright registration before criminal prosecution can be sought.

Although Gonzales’ proposal is far from being implemented as a law, it shows a distinct effort by the US Department of Justice to prosecute copyright violations. I am somewhat troubled by criminalizing "attempt" to commit copyright violation. I am troubled because it is not clear what would constitute an "attempt" to commit a copyright infringement. For example, putting a small part of my music collection on an FTP server which is accessible only by me so that I can listen to the music from my office (legal under copyright) may make me a candidate for DOJ prosecution - should it?

Another argument against the proposal posed by the Public Knowledge foundation criticizes the removal of the requirement to have a copyright registered before b

“The bill would eliminate the requirement that a copyrighted work be registered before the government could pursue a criminal copyright infringement claim. Current copyright law requires a copyrighted work to be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office before an infringement suit can be filed–regardless of whether it is a civil or criminal suit. While this change might increase the Department’s ability to apprehend copyright infringers, it would have an overall negative effect by discouraging copyright registration.

It would be interesting how Congress picks this? Undoubtedly, the bill will be greeted with much enthusiasm by Hollywood.