"The Internet has been a wonderful creation for our society. It allows us to instantly communicate with our family, friends, and loved-ones all over the world. We are able to shop from home and gain access to an unlimited amount of information in a very short period of time," said Senator Collins. "However, the Internet has also raised many challenges for society, not the least of which involves trying to apply laws meant for activities bounded by space and time to the Internet, which is bounded by neither. Freedom of speech, taxation, copyright protection, and run-of-the-mill fraud are just a few of the legal issues that the Internet has made very complicated."
The music industry has been pursuing aggressive legal action to slow the free sharing of digital music over the Internet, a trend it blames for a 31 percent slump in sales over the past three years. Over the summer, lawyers for the music industry, under the umbrella of its trade group, the Recording Industry Association of America, used that power to serve more than 1,500 "information subpoenas" on phone and cable companies and other Internet providers in an attempt to learn who owned the Internet accounts belonging to the users of file-sharing services. Copyright law allows for fines as high as $150,000 per violation, or, essentially, per traded song or movie file, and that defendants in the suits may not have known that friends or children were using their computers. The industry''s aggressive use of the subpoenas and subsequent penalties is being questioned for its broad reach, heavy-handedness, and possible violation of Internet users' privacy. "I come back to basic concerns about how the industry is making an example of a few people using broad power that is essentially unregulated," said Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN), Chairman of the Investigations Subcommittee. "It puts people in fear of draconian penalties to settle up on something they may or may not have done." Senator Collins agreed, saying, "I can understand the entertainment industry's frustration. Without question, it has suffered financially from illegal copying of their material, especially over the Internet. But I also have concerns about a strategy that targets individuals - often children - for enforcement action."