Senate Passes Scaled-Back Anti-Piracy Bill

The Senate has voted to outlaw several favorite techniques of people who illegally copy and distribute movies but has dropped other measures that could have led to jail time for Internet song swappers.

People who secretly videotape movies when they are shown in theaters could go to prison for up to three years under the measure, which passed the Senate on Saturday.

Hackers and industry insiders who distribute music, movies or other copyrighted works before their release also face stiffened penalties under the bill.

Most elements of the bill have already passed the House but will need to be approved by the House again in December after minor differences are ironed out.

Left out were several more controversial measures that would criminalize the actions of millions of Internet users who copy music and movies for free over “peer to peer” networks.

These users now face copyright-infringement lawsuits from recording labels and movie studios; thousands have been hit with such suits since last year.

Under a measure approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, song swappers could go to jail for up to three years if they shared more than 1,000 copyrighted works.

Consumer groups, consumer-electronics makers and the American Conservative Union had sought to derail those measures, portraying them as a radical expansion of traditional copyright protections.

That material was dropped from the bill, but the Justice Department said last month that it planned to take a more aggressive approach to policing intellectual-property crimes.