Several movie studios will be OnLine with their films within four to six months. Technology will be used to try to protect these films on their journey to homes, and to prevent wholesale reproduction and Internet retransmission. If it becomes clear that more protection is needed, some of which might require congressional legislation, we will return to you for help in protecting this valuable asset. Keep in mind it that the preeminence of the Copyright Industries as an American economic and creative prize is the prime reason why the Congress must stand guard, to preserve and defend Copyright against those who would loosen its protective bindings, or try to shrink it, or erode it. New technology makes possible, through the Internet, the illegal use of creative material without the permission of the owner nor any payment for its use.
Creative property is private property.
To take it without permission, without payment to its owners, collides with the core values of this society. Yet that is precisely is happening. Otherwise rational people who would not dream of stealing a videocassette off the shelf of a Blockbuster store are using movies without permission or payment, which is, for many, the assumed normality of current Internet behavior. It is estimated that today some 370,000 movies are being downloaded, illegitimately, every day . By the end of the year it is estimated that one million illegal downloads will take place every day .