Web users have been able to download millions of songs without paying royalties to music companies or artists. While the recording industry is on the front lines in a growing battle with copyright pirates, both professional and amateur, other sectors of the entertainment industry are on high alert and spending millions of dollars to defend their own intellectual property. In a speech to members of Congress yesterday, Walt Disney Co. chief executive Michael Eisner urged lawmakers to consider requiring computer makers and Internet service providers to include in their products technology that would protect intellectual property from pirates. Eisner would like to see a system in which computers and ISPs would be programmed to check each digital copy of a movie or record for an electronic watermark before allowing a copy to be made or transfer to take place. In addition, Eisner fretted that a digital culture is emerging around the world that seems to bless the concept that making an unauthorized use of copyrighted material is not really theft.
Music is a good wake-up call for the rest of the world.
In other copyright piracy news, a coalition of 13 video-game and computer companies including LucasArts Entertainment, Hasbro Interactive and Sony Computer Entertainment have filed a lawsuit in a San Francisco federal court accusing six Web sites of selling pirated copies of games. News Jobs AP Shopping Archives Entertain.