Congress has invited Chuck D and other musicians to participate in hearings to debate music sharing utility Napster, but a think tank's report may steal the show.
The Progressive Policy Institute wants to amend copyright law by requiring people to provide personal information before they can swap music and by making it easier for judges to grant injunctions.
The House Small Business Committee hearings that began Wednesday include testimony from Chuck D, founder of Rapstation.com; Peter Harter, vice president of Global Public Policy and Standards at Emusic.com; Tom Silverman, founder of Tommy Boy Records; and other industry representatives.
The committee also invited the Progressive Policy Institute, a self-described "centrist" organization linked to the Democratic Leadership Council, to submit its report Napster and Online Piracy: The Need to Revisit the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Chuck D said he was not informed that the written recommendations from the think tank would be included alongside the industry's testimony in the formal record.
The hearings won't have much immediate impact since Congress isn't likely to adopt new legislation before the end of this session, according to sources involved in the hearings.
However, the hearing may serve as the framework for lawmakers when they begin contemplating amendments to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the next session of Congress.
"This is a brand new issue for Congress and now other committees can use this for information in the future," said Rob Atkinson of the Progressive Policy Institute's Technology and New Economy Team. "Hearings appear to be show, but they have an important purpose in laying down a marker for Congress, letting them know that this is an issue to be watched, and where to start with legislative changes."
Atkinson and Shane Ham, who co-authored the report, have offered up three amendments to the DMCA that would require users to provide personal information before using a shared application like Napster while expanding judicial powers that grant judges more flexibility in granting injunctions.
"The original DMCA was written to keep judges from granting injunctions at all, and if these new amendments are going to be turned into legislation, judges need to be able to grant injunctions," Ham said.
But the pair wants to make it clear that while they want to strengthen the DMCA, they don't want to regulate technologies.
"The law cannot keep up with technology and judges need to be able to have some leeway in being able to stop this technology because we can't pass a law every time a new technology comes out," said Jordan Matyas, a spokesman for the PPI. "The main goal isn't to try to shut down Napster, but to insure that the people that use this technology use it properly."
Reuters contributed to this report.
